Cool Paper Art: Tropical Birthday Card

Hi, I decided to make my sister a birthday card. She just got married in Florida, so I knew she would like this tropical stamp from WPlus9. I worked through some art problems and was able to pull it together- just in time!

First, I did the background. I blended Wild Honey and Carved Pumpkin Distress Inks on Strathmore Bristol 300 series paper. I then splashed some water and blotted it off with a paper towel, causing this cool effect.

I stamped the image using Hero Arts Intense Black Ink because it is Copic-Marker-Friendly. The markers I used were V04, V06, V09, and a bit of BV08 for the purple flowers. I used YG13, G07, G17 and G29 for the leaves. I used R08, YR07, PR09, and YR14 for the main flower. I plan to add a few more colors to my collection, but was happy with how it turned out.

Disaster! I had some major leakage while I was coloring and I learned that it could be from uneven pressure in the copic marker. So I took off both caps at the same time to equalize the pressure. I didn't have issues after that. I decided to cut as close as I could to the stamp to hide some of the errors. This took a while but was worth it. I used a colorless blender and then a White Uni Ball Signo Broad Pen to color in some of the dots of the leaves.

To match the background, I used Y11 to color in the spots that were just too tiny to cut.

I coated the edges of the bouquet with a black Tombow pen to give it a finished look.

I used a stitched rectangle die from Simon Says Stamps to cut my background down a bit. I will save the outside border for another piece in the future.

I took a lot of time to cut up the Simon Says Stamp foam tape because I am all about that pop-up life. The 3-D effect adds a lot and I wanted to make sure the flowers didn't get crushed in the mail. I would be lost without my EKTools Tweezers because I always struggle to get the backing off of the foam tape.

I used an anti static tool on my green sentiment strip to prep it. I then stamped the sentiments with VersaMark Ink, used Fine White Embossing Powder to coat, heat-set the words until they were shiny and popped them up on the card.

I used some awesome Washi Tape on the bottom of the inside of the card. It is one of my favorites. I used a Wink of Stella Pen on the hibiscus flower to add some shine.