Paper Recollections

Do you have lots of alcohol markers that you rarely use?  I have spent a lot of money on alcohol markers only to find that I really don't enjoy coloring stamped images.  Today's beautiful cards were created while experimenting with alternate ways I can use my alcohol markers. To create the alcohol inked background shapes, I took a piece of Yupo white translucent paper that I purchased at Hobby Lobby and scribbled various shades of pink alcohol markers across the Yupo Paper.  Then, I dropped alcohol ink blending solution in various places on the paper.  I tipped the paper back and forth to allow the pink shades to mix and fill up most of the white space of the paper.  I repeated this process on another piece of Yupo paper using shades of blue alcohol markers. I allowed the paper to dry until parts of the paper felt a little tacky.  Then, I took some of my foil scraps (left over from when I use my Spellbinders Glimmer machine), and placed the scraps on top of...

Today's St. Patrick's Day card features a variety of mixed media combined with several die cuts.  To create the background, I applied two shades of green alcohol inks along with a yellow alcohol pearl ink and a metal alloy ink to a Yupo card panel. Before the ink was completely dry, I pressed some gold sparkle foil onto the alcohol-inked panel.  This caused the foil to stick to the wet parts of the Yupo paper. To create the pot of gold, I die cut a black cauldron from black cardstock. I added gold gelato to the edges of the cauldron.  I applied a small amount of water to the gelato and used my finger to smooth out the pigment. This gave the sides of the cauldron a sparkle and shimmer.  I used VersaMark ink to stamp the sentiment in the center of the cauldron. I heat embossed with gold sparkle embossing powder. To create the coins, I used gold foil cardstock and a scalloped slimline rectangular frame die cut. After die-cutting the rectangular frame, I cut off some of ...

Today's card is a fun virtual reality birthday card created in Cricut Design Space and features a vibrant title backed by an alcohol inked panel. A couple of years ago, my son and I read the book Ready Player One,  a science fiction book about humanity's use of virtual reality to escape the real world. Fast forward a few years and now he wants his own virtual reality headset for his birthday.  I created this card for him to celebrate our love for this book and to serve as a precursor of the birthday gift that was to come. While creating this card, I wore the movie T-Shirt I bought last year so I could mimic the movie title font and colors.  I needed an easy way to make the title out of rainbow colors so I placed a few colors of alcohol ink on a felt pad and swiped it across Yupo Paper.  I downloaded and installed the font used for the movie title and cut the title out of a black A2 card panel using Cricut Design Space.  I backed the black card panel with th...

Today's card features an alcohol ink background and a die cut flower from Tim Holtz's Wildflower Stems #2 die set.  I was inspired to get out my alcohol inks and make several backgrounds after watching Tim Holtz's alcohol ink Facebook live session.  I decided to turn one of the backgrounds into an anniversary card. To make the card, I cut a 5x7 piece of Yupo paper in half and applied Red Pepper and Sunshine Yellow alcohol inks.  I used blending solution along with Tim Holtz's handheld air blower to blend and mix the colors together.  I applied a silver metallic mixative and used isopropyl alcohol to separate it and thin it out.  I allowed the background to air dry a bit and then applied gold Deco Foil to the areas that were slightly tacky. I wanted a simple design for my card that allowed the background to be the main focus.  Out of red cardstock, I cut my favorite flower from Tim Holtz's Wildflower # 2 Sizzix die set.  I die cut an oval from gray card...