Taylored Expressions: You're my hero - nephew's birthday card

Hi blogging friends,

One of my grown-up nephews is a Musician and this is the one-layer card I made for his birthday: 

I broke out one of my more recent purchases from Taylored Expressions called "You're my hero" which is an awesome set - lots of different rock images for guys and gals, sentiments and grungey elements:  very cooool!  This set is rubber mounted with that foam stuff so you will need something to mount it on for stamping eg: acrylic block, and a stamp positioner comes in very handy!  I have no connection to the company other than loving their stamps and dies - fantastic quality and great value for money IMHO.

I inked up the grungey background image with Faded Jeans Distress ink, misted it with water using my Mini Mister then stamped it on my white cardstock base and stamped it again in a different spot (without re-inking) so I had another image but looking more faded.   I then inked up the same image with Wild Honey Distress ink, misted it with water then stamped that over the blue image and then again without re-inking.  Because Distress inks react with water, I ended up with a bit of a mix of the two colours in various spots which I really like.

I rounded the corners on the top and bottom RH corners with a Stampin' Up corner punch then stamped the bottom LH corner and top RH corner the same way I did the grungey background.

I used my Ranger Ink Blending Tool and foam pad with Wild Honey ink and went around the edges of the card then did the same with Faded Jeans ink.

Once I had done that, I used a heat-gun to dry off the card then used my Stamp Positioner to stamp the guitar, guitar neck/fret board and the sentiment using Versafine Onyx Black ink.  I used a black Bic Mark-it texta to colour in the tuners so they would stand out better from the background.

I wanted to add some glittery black stars so punched out some stars from black cardstock, added Kindyglitz Crystalina glitter glue but after it dried, they didn't look as nice as what I hoped as the glittery bits looked all uneven - and then - LIGHTBULB moment - I grabbed a piece of scrap black cardstock and inked it with Versamark Watermark ink, poured on some Polysparkle clear embossing powder and heat-set it.  Voila!   Nice and sparkly but the glitter was set in the embossing powder so a) it wasn't going to come off and go all over the card, and b) it was nice and even - which I hope you can see from the close-up photo below - hey, it looks just like the night sky!!

Then all I had to do was punch out the stars - easy, peasy!  Great way of making some glittery cardstock - and quick - and when you think about it, you have a way of making glittery cardstock in any colour to match your project if you were needing just a small amount for punching or making an embellishment.  If you don't have Polysparkle clear embossing powder, just pour some of the embossing powder into a little container and mix in some glitter and use that.

Here is a close-up of the glittery stars on the card itself:

Lastly, I added two tiny matching raw sienna brads next to the sentiment to balance the card.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Crazy 4 Challenges:  C4C118 -  New year….new ‘toys’…..new techniques. Do or use something NEW on your card/project. My 'new' technique is the glitter cardstock I made for punching my stars PLUS I am using this newly purchased stamp set for the first time.

Splitcoaststampers - Ways to use it WT336 - Versamark - from a while ago.  Note SCS Challenges have no time limit - you can play anytime.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great week!

Jocelyn

Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Taylored Expressions 'You're my hero'

Ink:  Versafine Onyx black, Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Faded Jeans and Wild Honey, Versamark Watermark

Accessories:   Brads - raw sienna, Polysparkle embossing powder, heat-gun, Ranger Mini Mister, Ranger Inkssentials Blending tool and foam pads (one for each colour), stamp positioner, acrylic block, Black Bic-Mark it, cardstock:  KW Doggett "Knight" white, black

Punches:  Stampin' Up corner, Carl CP-1 (small) star, Carl CP-2 (large) star