Hi friends, it’s time for another challenge over at Stamping Smiles Design – Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge #15.
This is so full of fun combinations and I decided to go with the first vertical row – Burlap, Word Dies and Bokeh Effect.
Bokeh or the blur effect was a very popular technique among card makers, not too long ago. To make this effect you can use stencils or even stamps. You stamp same image in different sizes multiple time slightly overlapping. Mostly this technique is done using circles – stencils or stamps, but circles. I decided to change it a little bit and go with stars. Something like this image here:
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Here’s what I did with my card:
For my background, I took a piece of SSS white card stock and die cut it using largest of SSS stitched rectangle dies. On this panel, I randomly stamped several star images using SSS lots of stars stamp set. I chose 4 different sizes of stars with four different Altenew Crisp dye inks in yellow shades. These dye inks stamp beautifully and come in sets of 4 small cubes in one color family. The one I used here is called the Summer Afternoon.
For my stamping, I went with the lightest color on the largest star and increased color darkness as I decreased image sizes. That way the card still feels open and airy and not too dark overall. I also heat embossed a piece of scrap paper with Martha Stewart antique gold embossing ink and die cut little stars out of it using SSS Mini Stars die. I also added some more stars from another scrap piece of paper I had on hand which was also in yellow shade.
For the sentiment, I used the beautiful ‘because’ stamp and die set by My Favorite Things. This stamp set has a large word stamp & die for ‘because’ and several sentiments that go with it, like the one I used here ‘you’re amazing’. They also have a similar stamp set called ‘grateful for you’ and love these both.
I die cut out the word ‘because’ from a piece of black card stock from my scraps and to make it go well with rest of the card, went over the word using Sakura glitter pen. It added a fine line of glitters that matches the shimmer on the gold heat embossed stars. Love how it pulls the design together.
Finally, I assembled the card by adding a burlap ribbon to mount my sentiment and layering everything. The beautiful lacy burlap ribbon is from an etsy store called ‘house of burlap‘. They have some gorgeous burlaps and the one used here was a sample I got for just $2 including shipping. Love that store.
While I had my supplies out, I also made one more fun card for a sweet little girl using the same bokeh technique. I only relaxed the burlap elements from this one.
So those were my cards for today. I hope you liked them and are inspired to give this challenge a try. Can’t wait to see what you guys create!
Supplies list
For your convenience, I am sharing links to the supplies I’ve used for these cards – click on the picture or link to go directly to the product. Wherever available, I have used affiliate links, which means when you make a purchase, I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) which I use to run this blog. I truly appreciate your support!
Hugs!! ~Varada
