Happiness Card

Hi readers! Has Summer come to your part of the world yet? It is definitely Summer here but at least not humid so I can stand the hotter temperatures. The weather has been so nice I already have little green tomatoes. The lettuce has gone crazy in pots and needs to be harvested but the peas don't seem to like this hotter weather. The weather went pretty much from Winter into Summer.

O.K I know I talk about being frugal here but ever once in awhile the "Material Girl" raises her head and won't be satisfied until I buy her some things.  Most of what I buy is at thrift stores like the oil pastels and one of the stencils I used on this card. However, with gelatos showing up being used in so many projects I could not resist buying some metallic ones. Then today in the mail came a kit with gelatos and another goodie. :-) Anyway here is a card I made from my experiments.

 The blue at the top is where I used a mini honeycomb stencil with a  blue gelato stick and water on a piece of scrap white cardstock. I was a little heavy handed scribbling the gelato over the stencil. Also it was only near the bottom of the cardstock where I had the perfect amount of water on my brush where the color didn't totally bleed under the stencil. You know what they say about practice makes perfect.

The "happiness" is from a stamp set. Because I did not want to cover up the stenciled design and don't like to stamp directly on something in case I mess up I stamped on packing tape using Stazon ink. I first stamped using Cherry Pink but alas it was too light of a color. I decided that the Teal color probably would not show either. Since I don't have a Black Stazon pad I went with the Royal Purple.

The black here is actually from inside a page protector. I bought a box of 100 for $2.50 at the thrift store this week. I didn't have any black cardstock so thought I would try an insert. :-) The design is a Plaid stencil I bought at the thrift store for a quarter. I rubbed three different colors of oil pastels over the stencil and then while the stencil was still on the black rubbed with my fingers. After taking the stencil off I took a gelato and rubbed a wet brush over it and then brushed the color on the black over my stenciling. Alas I could not pick up the shimmer in my photo. The blue,pink and purple colors didn't really show on the black but it did give a nice silver shimmer.

The image is one I downloaded from Dover some time ago. It actually was a yellow color but through the magic of my printer I was able to turn it into a monochromatic print. I didn't realize but somehow after I printed it and before I cut it with my Cameo I moved the image on the workspace a hair. This left a small white edge. Normally I would have edged the entire image with ink because it gives a nice dimension. This time though I decided to paint just the one edge with purple dimensional fabric paint.  After the paint was dry I pop dotted it on the black panel.

There you have it my experiment with stencils using oil pastels and gelato sticks. I have done more experimenting with the gelato sticks and using plastic page protectors. I can't wait to share my experiments with you. I love the other card I finished today but want to wait until I can finish the second card to share both of them in the same post.  I'll give you a hint they also use tissue paper or facial tissue and floor wax. Lol! My friend who has been visiting saw me brushing on the floor wax and commented that he was wondering why I had floor wax on hand since he has never seen me wax floors. I bought the floor wax to make Christmas ornaments and no sense in just tossing it out. I do want to see if this technique would also work with white glue since I know not everyone would want to go out and buy the floor wax for crafting.

Off to see if things have dried so I can craft some more. If not maybe I'll go and play with my other new toy that came today. Oh, if you live in the U.S. and would like to try your hand at gelatos Amazon has a kit for under $20 with ten gelato sticks and lots of other goodies including a 24 page booklet. If you order $35 of eligible products  you get free shipping but even if you don't the shipping is reasonable and you will spend less than the retail price.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!