Chevron Happy Birthday

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Lisa!

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Colours (white, black, red, yellow, blue) Techniques (inkblending, die cutting, stamping) Elements (birthday, balloons, chevrons,slimline, stamped sentiment, twine, black mat/frame)

INCLUDE: rainbow created with red, yellow, blue, ink blending, die cutting, birthday theme, chevrons, circle

MODIFY: 1 white circle sentiment mat instead of 3 coloured balloons, die cut sentiment instead of stamped, black frame around sentiment, A2 format, technique for building chevrons

EXCLUDE: balloons, twine, stamping

SPIN: added gold gems

TIPS FOR INKBLENDING:

If you struggle with inkblending, the best thing to do is to keep practicing. 

• start with smooth paper and juicy inks
• whichever tool you choose (I prefer brushes, but others prefer foam!), start with a light hand
• take your time, build up layers of colour - the paper will actually feel wet
• go back and forth between the colours to allow for blending
• use colours that are close together on the colour wheel - if you're blending yellow and red, don't be afraid to use an orange in the middle to help smooth the blend
• add splatter (water or white/gold/coloured) to distract from your less-than-perfect areas
• if all else fails, cut it down and just use the 'good' parts! lol!

For this card, I ink blended a panel with blue, yellow and red ink (and put a big blue fingerprint in the yellow area!) and then spritzed it with water and gold watercolour and let it dry. Then I cut it with a strips die before building a herringbone pattern with the coloured strips and white strips cut with the same die.

I finished it with one white circle, instead of 3 colourful balloons, and a die cut birthday sentiment, instead of a stamped sentiment.