I’ve been in birthday card mass production again. Since we’re getting to the end of the month, I need to create a batch of cards for the card ministry for October. I’m still in the dark on how many cards are needed, so I’ve made large batches of two cards and when I finally know the number I’ll either have enough, or I’ll need to whip up a few more. I made 18 of this card, so that’s a sizeable chunk. I pulled out the large package of retired Gingham Cottage paper for the lower section. That’s one of the wonderful things about the card ministry is that it gives me a chance to use a little bit of the massive quantity of retired paper that I have on hand. I’m also very appreciative of the opportunity to use my card making skills to celebrate the people in our church. The woman that coordinates the ministry tells me every month how much the recipients appreciate the cards, and her minions that send the cards really appreciate having special handmade cards to send. It’s like a gift that keeps giving – enjoyment for me in creating them, warm hearts for those that send them, and appreciation for those that receive a special card. I love it!
For this card I used a technique that I learned from Jennifer McGuire – the great card making guru. She calls this technique “Faux Watercolor” and you can see her blog post about it here. I love watching her videos because she often shows techniques that can be used with any materials. So I can recreate many of them with Stampin’ Up! supplies. The key to this one is to create your own multi-color ink pad with ink refills; you can see here the one that I created for this card. The color flowed over time as I used it for many repetitions of stamping for the 18 cards that i created. The baby wipe stays damp for a lot longer than I expected, so it really is great for doing large batch stamping. Behind the colored baby wipe is a trimmed down cover from a pack of salad greens. I’ll save the plastic piece so I can use it again for this technique in the future. This technique is so easy, and you can do it with things that you have on hand. I love techniques like this!
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