Well, I don’t know how this has happened, but we have made it through to the middle of March, and I have only posted twice about testing the gifts that come with magazines, the last one being the Art Deco card in February. It is not because I have not shared the creations that I haven’t posted anything but actually because they are all still all in a very stuffed basket. So I decided to address this before Easter hits. We are starting today with a Mandala stencil and stamp set that came with Papercraft Essentials Issue 153 back in November!
Products Used
- The Gift from Papercraft Essentials
- White Stamping Card by Sheena Douglass
- Black Card from Lynda Chapman
- Distress Oxide: Worn Lipstick, Cracked Pistachio, Broken China & Wilted Violet
- Distress Ink Pads: Dusty Concord, Worn Lipstick & Broken China
- Versa Mark
- Nuvo Glitter Embossing Powder: Shimmering Pearl
- Ranger Archival Ink
- Pinflair Stencil Glue
- Collall All Purpose Glue
- Black 3D Sticky Foam Pads
Versa Mark and Embossing Powder
Firstly, I trimmed a piece of the stamping card to slightly more substantial than the stencil. I dampened a sponge and applied the Stencil Glue to the back of the mandala stencil, left it for five minutes as recommended, then stuck it onto the stamping card. I applied the Versa Mark just to the featured quarter mandala section then removed the stencil and covered the ink with the embossing powder.Experienced embossers will have noticed that I forgot to use my dusting powder thankfully I seem to have got away with it!
Adding some Colour
As you can tell, you can’t see the design very well, so it was time to add some colour. I grabbed the four Distress Oxide pads I own which are naturally in some of my favourite colours and used a small piece of Cut N Dry Foam and made splodges all over, just like I have seen the experts do. Once I had covered the whole cardstock with the ink, I used my Nuvo Light Mist Spray Bottle to activate the inks. Using a fresh piece of Cut N Dry I helped the colours to blend. Here is how things were looking at that stage.
Tidying the Edges
I’ll be honest there is a small section of the Mandala design where I have either not applied enough Versa Mark or possibly overheated the embossing powder. When I was a newer crafter, I may have been tempted to scrap this and start again. But, firstly I have to consider my spoons, and secondly, I am more experienced and can think how to rectify this. To give the design a cleaner look I trimmed the cardstock down using my Cutterpillar Pro, so the embossing that had gone over the edge was cut off. I then used the Dusty Concord Distress Ink with my blending tool to go around the edges of the design. I thought about using Black Soot but decided this would be too dark.
Adding a Sentiment
I decided to use the ‘Today is all about you’ sentiment from the included stamp set. I used my Tonic Studios Tim Holtz Stamping Platform to line this up on the lower right corner of the cardstock and stamped it with the Ranger Archival Ink.
Creating some Matting Layers
I decided this design needed some matting layers to help it pop. To complement the glittery embossing powder and the colourful inks I selected Hunkydory Rainbow Mirri card for the featured layer and Lynda’s Black Cardstock for added pop. The black borders are 2 mm wide, and the Mirri card is 1 cm wider than the design cardstock. Here is the card at this stage.
Finishing touches to the Mandala Stencil Card
To complete the card I needed to cover the part of the mandala that I was not happy with, and I did this by creating an embellishment. Using another piece of the stamping cardstock I stencilled one of the smaller designs in Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. I cut this down with the Cuterpillar Pro and then used the Crop-a-Dile Corner Chomper to round the corners to round the corners using the 1/2 ” setting. I used the Broken China Distress Ink to go around the edges and then once all the ink was dry I stamped the ‘Celebrate’ sentiment over the top with the Ranger Archival Ink.
Completing the Mandala Design Card
The final steps involved matting the Embellishment onto some of Lynda’s Black Card again with a 2 mm border and rounding the corners of the matt. I then attached this sentiment embellishment with some black 3D sticky foam pads. Here is the completed card:
If you have this gift from Papercraft Essentials, hopefully, I have given you some inspiration for using it. As you will know if you have been following the blog for a while, I prefer to not look at the images made by the design team before creating a card because I think this is good practice for coming up with ideas. Now I have finished this project I will go and see what others have come up with, will they be similar or completely different? I’ll find out soon.
Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan
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