One of the many cool techniques shown on day two of the Online Card Classes Clear & Sheer class was dry embossing vellum and then coloring it from the back for a pretty, soft watercolor look. Well, classes are all about learning and trial-and-error and I sure had my share of that with this one! But, in the end, I learned a lot and had at least one card I’m very happy with – can you guess which one it was?
The Cat’s Pajamas TCP Tuesday challenge is flowers and they’re having a Spring Blog Hop this month.
So, I reached for an old scrap of parchment vellum and my TCP Patterned Petals stamp set, and set the printed acetate storage panel under my vellum and began to trace the outer edges of the flowers and leaves. You just need the outline of any flower. ( I think Alma from TCP is going to be surprised to see her stamps used this way!) As the parchment vellum was whiter than regular vellum my white pencil wasn’t showing up and I switched to yellow. Mistake #1. (Unless you WANT to have a yellow outline show up around your nice white edges.) I really didn’t think it would show through as much as it did… it wasn’t too noticeable until after I added the color and attached it to the card. sigh. Note to self: the instructors DO know what they’re talking about. : )
Here I’m doing it with the second card and heavy vellum and you can see the white lines clearly. You need to see them once you put your vellum on a rubber mat to trace with a stylus and dry emboss it.
The class gave pointers on unusual shading tools to use, but I can’t tell you everything. : )
A tip not in the class… If your stylus isn’t moving smoothly across the paper, you can lay the tip in the palm of your hand and twist it gently. It will pick up the natural oils and glide more smoothly.
I still had places where I used too much pressure and broke through the vellum. Since it was a scrap, I had no way of knowing what weight it was, but I made sure to use heavier weight vellum for the second card. Yes, there was a second card, because as you can see at this point it’s looking pretty cool and after I’d added the color, I really wished I had just stopped here. I liked it MUCH better!
I added color on the back side using Copic markers. Like the instructor said, it looks like a ‘hot mess!’
But then you turn it over and the colors are very soft and the white shading stays opaque.
See where I pressed too hard while embossing and broke the vellum and the Copic marker bled through? I have a tip for you to fix that:
Tip: use a Copic Blender (0) to push most of the ink back through anywhere it bled onto the front of the vellum. Then lightly go over the area with a white pencil. When you look at the finished card, you can hardly tell there were any bleed-throughs.
I tried, with limited success, to cover up the yellow guidelines and at the same time give them more depth by outlining them with grey Copics.
I ran into another snag… I used some Adirondack embossing powder for the first time. I don’t know if it’s supposed to have those white spots through it, but I certainly didn’t want them! 
Copic Markers to the rescue again! Just traced over the letters until they’re all covered. Whew!
My final error on this card was when attaching the vellum, I sprayed the back with adhesive, but wasn’t careful enough laying it down and it puckered irreversibly. by now I already knew I was going back to make a nice and pretty plain white one, so I called it a day. It’s still ok… just not the ‘spectacular’ that I was going for.
Materials used:
- The Cat’s Pajamas: Patterned Petals Stamp set
- Misc. parchment vellum
- Heartfelt Creations Flower Shaping Essentials tool kit
- Generic clay shaping tool kit
- Crayola white and yellow colored pencils
- Copic Markers: C1, 3; G29; R20, 24, 29, 32; Y17; YG67; YR04
- Versamark ink pad
- Ranger Adirondack Cranberry embossing powder
- Recollections shimmer card
- Aleene’s Crystal Clear Tacky Spray
- Tree House Studio 9mm holographic flower sequin
Now, you would think that having all that experience, the second card would go off without a hitch, but it wasn’t until after I glued it down that I noticed I’d forgot my little stamen dots. So, instead of being embossed, they’re done with a white Gelly Roll pen.
I think the plain white on vellum rather than parchment vellum looks MUCH classier – what do you think?
Materials used:
- The Cat’s Pajamas: Patterned Petals Stamp set
- Worldwin Papers Translucent Vellum
- Heartfelt Creations Flower Shaping Essentials tool kit
- Generic clay shaping tool kit
- Crayola white colored pencil
- Versamark ink pad
- Stampendous PEARLustre embossing powder – Rose Quartz
- Recollections shimmer card
- Aleene’s Crystal Clear Tacky Spray
- Sakura white Gelly Roll pen
- Misc. clear sequins
I’m going to enter one or both of these cards (either linked from here or Instagram) into the following galleries, hops and challenges – You can click on each one for more information:
I’ll probably be back later today with the other two cards I did from Day 2. See you soon!
-D.Ann
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D.Ann's Crafting Whims 