You Are a Gem

Hi all! Welcome back! Today is an uplifting card that I just love because of the sparkle and glitz. The card has its flaws (and we'll talk about that in more detail) but it's still one that I love the design elements on. Let's get started!

Ever since I saw Kristina Werner create a card with this neat and Tangled Gem Stamp set, I drooled over it. I'm a glitter girl so knowing there were so many options to bling this set out, I had to get it!

I had stamped several of the jewels out and colored them for the Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. Since coloring them in with my Arteza Real Brush Pens, I had envisioned colored gems falling through the card with other clear gems falling behind them. Creating the clear gems was my issue. I just couldn't seem to figure out how I could stamp the clear gems on the paper. I thought about just using Versamark ink but when I stamped it to the specialty sparkle paper I was using for the background, it didn't quite give the effect I was looking for. So I went looking through my supplies to see what might get me closer to what I was looking for. As I was rifling though, I found my perfect pearls I had just used for the Superhero cards from my last post and thought "This could work!"

So I stamped up several gems on my background with Versamark ink and then sprinkled the Perfect Pearls over it. Then I very lightly spritzed the paper with water to set the Perfect Pearls. It pulled of the exact look I was going for!

Then I started to place the colored gems around on the paper to make them look like they were falling along with the Perfect Pearls gems. Once I had an idea of where I wanted them placed, I decided to stamp my sentiement in the bottom left corner of the card.

I placed the card in my Tim Holtz stamping platform and stamped the "You are a gem" sentiment over a few of the Perfect Pearls gems with Black Versafine ink. Within a few minutes I could tell I might have an issue with the sentiment. Where the sentiment crossed over the Perfect Pearls, the ink was blooming quite rapidly and did not dry very well. I'm no scientist but I'm guessing something in the Perfect Pearls mixes with the Versafine ink and allows it to spread. Because of this I had to get a little creative with the sentiment. So I took my black Cricut marker out to fill in some of the letters and try to make it look like it was supposed to end up that way. However, I learned the Cricut pens were not the best to use over the Perfect Pearls. Next I tried a sharpie, which worked great to make the bleeding seem more purposeful. Buuuuut, in the end, after adding Nuvo Sparkle Pen and the Glossy Accents dried you're able to see where I added the Sharpie to the sentiment. Kind of a bummer but lesson learned.

After stamping the sentiment, I glued down the colored gems with Art Glitter Glue and attached it to a 4.25x5.5in black panel and then adhered that panel to a white A2 card frame. Lastly, I added Nuvo sparkle pen and glossy accents to the colored gems and word "gem" in the sentiment.