Ice Cream & Ink Smooshing | Make The Cards Challenge #24

 Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Deepa Robbins and I'm extremely happy to have been asked to be a part of the Make the Cards Challenge design team!

 If you are not familiar with my blogging, I usually always try to post a process video on YouTube, which I will link below. If you are more of a viewer than a reader, definitely go ahead and watch the video instead. Also, I always decorate my card insides and try to match them to the card front. So if you are looking for card ideas for the insides of your cards, you've found the right place! I'd also like to mention that I do have affiliate links at no cost to you. 

Now let's get into it! This week's Make the Cards Challenge #24 is a Color Challenge entitled Summer Fun. And I don't know about you but when I think of summer, I think of ice cream! And coincidentally July is National Ice Cream month. So I'm going to go ahead and make an ice cream card using the colors below.

So as I mentioned, if you prefer to watch just click the picture below. 👇

Firstly, I went ahead and stamped the ice cream cones with Hero Arts Contour Ink (perfect for no line coloring) using the Altenew Summer Swirls stamp set. I chose to use Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock to facilitate some alcohol marker coloring. I used Spectrum Noir Triblends in colors Magenta, Gold Yellow, Dull Green, True Blue, Gold Brown (cone) and Dark Red (cherries). And I just colored these cones in but putting down my darkest color using lots of quick slanted strokes to get the shape of the ice cream, then adding my medium and light colors. The light color tends to lighten the shaded areas, so I went over those again with the dark and medium colors. Finally, I added some highlights with the Sakura Gelly roll pens. I then fussy cut out the cones.

For my background I used a 9"x4" piece of Canson Watercolor Cardstock. I experimented with ink smooshing using both Distress inks and Oxide inks. I chose to use picked raspberry, mowed lawn, mustard seed and salty ocean to match my ice cream. Then I used a craft mat to protect my table and applied the ink to the mat and sprayed it with a bit of water. I then smooshed my cardstock into the ink multiple times while drying with a heat gun in between to create layers of ink. I did this in stages using each color separately so that there wasn't much mixing. This way I could maintain the four colors from the challenge post. Once completed for both distress and oxide inks, I found that the oxide panel gave a more vibrant look while the distress panel gave a more watercolor sort of washed out look. I decided to use the distress ink panel so as to not draw attention away from those ice cream cones. 

I then stamped out the "are the sweetest" sentiment from the same Altenew Summer Swirlss stamp set with  Nocturne VersaFine Clair  ink on white cardstock. I cut it out using a sentiment die from the Spellbinders Spot On Backgrounds & Sentiments glimmer plate set. I cut out the "you" from Tim Holtz Metallic Jewels Kraft cardstock in black using the you Birch Press Sugar Script die. I then cut out 3 more from plain black cardstock and adhered them together using Artist-tac permanent dry adhesive to create some dimension. I adhered the cones to the panel with foam squares and the sentiments using  BearlyArt glue . I then added some Glossy Accents to the You sentiment and the cherries for interest. I finished off the card front with some PinkFresh Studios Jewels to match the four colors. An embellishment wand really comes in handy for this step and you can find some really cheap ones on Amazon :)!

For the card inside, I used the Simon Says Stamp Slimline Waves stencil, adhered with some 3M masking tape. I do advise using this tape over painter's tape or washi because it comes off so easily without ruining your cardstock. I did try this with washi and it actually tore up some of my cardstock so I had to do this part twice. I then did some ink blending with the same colors of oxide inks being careful not to blend too much in between the colors. There is also another ice cream cone in the Summer Swirls stamp set that I used with  Nocturne VersaFine Clair  ink to stamp all over that side panel of the card inside. This beautifully ties in the ice cream and colors to the inside of the card. Finally I used some sentiments from the Honey Bee Stamps Birthday: Inside stamp set. The main sentiment was stamped with  Nocturne VersaFine Clair  ink and the Happy Birthday was stamped with the Kaleidacolor Fresh Greens ink pad ( I couldn't find this exact set of colors but I've linked something close). This is a really cool ink pad where there five small ink pads within with different colors and you can click them together to create a gradient pad or click apart to be separate small ink pads. I just moved my stamp back and forth across the pad set in the gradient setting to allow the colors to mix nicely in between and stamped it on my card with an acrylic block.

And there you have my ice cream card for Make the Cards Challenge #24. I hope you've been inspired and please don't forget to post your creations on the MTCC blog. I can't wait to see what you create!

 Happy Crafting!