amazing - inspired by Jennifer McGuire

Hello again! Thank you for all of your lovely comments on my alcohol ink butterfly card! :) To tell you the truth, I liked the one with the black butterflies better, too. But when hubby said he liked the simpler version more, I thought maybe he saw something in the card that I didn't... so that's why I thought I'd ask you guys for your opinion. Thanks for confirming my gut instinct! ;) And sorry, hubby. LOL

There's still tons of excitement over at the Hero Arts blog regarding all of the new changes to the site! Lots of inspiration, too. Here's my card that was featured today (click to see larger):




I was completely inspired by two of Jennifer's cards... this one because of the lovely Liquid Pearl background, and this one for the great color scheme. My card seems pretty simple and straight forward, but see that tiny little strip of striped paper? Under the sentiment? Yeah... the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. LOL Seriously, that little strip of paper gave me such a headache! It's not striped patterned paper... it's actually hand done, with various strips of card stock glued down in a random order (clicking on the card above will make this more apparent). Just cut slivers of card stock various widths and colors, and glue them to a strip of white card stock in a random order. And if white is part of your color scheme, be sure to leave some gaps when applying, so the white card stock can show through from underneath. Then, just cut the entire glued piece into strips, perpendicular to the stripes and voila... a customized, striped "patterned paper" embellishment. :)

The problem came when I first tried to do it with just a dry adhesive (tape runner) to save time. Normally, a tape runner works great if you're adhering papers of at least some substance together. Gluing those teeny tiny strips of card stock, went fine, but when I went to cut the strip, the now little SQUARES of card stock no longer wanted to stay in place. LOL They started shifting and/or popping off, and I had to start over and go back and REGLUE alllll of those little strips of paper back on! :P So if you ever use this technique, be sure to use a STRONG liquid glue to apply your strips right off the bat. I really love Tombo Mono Multi... very permanent! ;)

Well, it's the weekend! Can you believe it? And summer's in full swing. :) Thanks for reading and have a good one!

SUPPLIES: all Hero Arts stamps (S5213, CL223, and C4901), VersaMark and Colorbox Chalk inks, clear embossing powder, DCWV card base and SU! card stocks, white opal Liquid Pearls, Hero button, May Arts ribbon, white floss, and pop dots