Normally I don’t go for the really cutsie images (read: inanimate objects with smiley faces). But the Lawn Fawn hedgehogs really spoke to me for some reason. I think they are really cute creatures in life so the stamp set felt more realistic and less over the top cute. I have to admit that it made me squee, which I don’t usually do over stamp sets. Plus, the low price point and the matching die makes the set really a great deal.
When I saw the DCWV stack-a-holic card sketch challenge for March, I knew I had the perfect idea for combining the sketch, the stamp and a needed get-well card.
First up the sketch…
And my take…
I used the DCWV Glitzy Glitter 6×6 paper pad. This paper is not simply a glitter glued down to cardstock. I’m not sure how this is manufactured, but the “glitter” is really fine and embedded/printed in a way that it does not come off. When you rub a hand over the glitter you can’t feel flakes, just a rougher texture. I love, love this paper since I can’t stand loose glitter flakes everywhere. I knew I wanted to use this paper since it had color gradient that worked well for the ground, grass and sky, plus pink for the hearts. And the card is a get-well card for a lovely little girl who had to spend a few days in the hospital. I wanted something very sweet and sparkly to cheer her up.
At first I tried stamping the images in regular dye ink on the glitter paper and that did not work well. The image was really faint. I could have tried Staz-On next but I decided to go straight for heat embossing to give it extra pop. When I heated the glitzy paper I soon realized something: there is a plastic quality to the paper that does not react well to heat. The paper curled quite badly very quickly. I was able to ease out some of the curling but didn’t get an entirely flat piece again. This made it harder to die cut since I had to tape the die down well to the cutting plate to get it to stay in place in the die machine. Once I got it cut, the continued curling didn’t matter to me as it gave the banner and little animals additional texture which I found I actually liked. However if you need something really flat this may be a problem. I may try to experiment with the heat more or squashing the pieces under heavy books for a while. If I don’t come up with more tips, just know for now, that you will run into this issue.
Once the embossing and die cutting was done, I added color to the hedgehogs (stamped on the same silver paper as the banner) using Copic markers. The paper did take well to the ink and I was able to add just a little shading and detail. Since it is such a small image, I don’t know how well true Copic blending would work on this surface, but I’d say give it a try and see what happens. I may try it with some floral images to test it out. I will let you know if I do.
(Note: The little hearts I ended up die cutting came from another lawn fawn set that had just a slightly larger heart die that cut in multiple.)
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