ArtChix Birthday Card

This card started out with a kraft paper bag from World Market. I loved the brown-on-brown pattern and altered the paper with Golden fluid acrylic transparent red oxide and transparent yellow oxide, but I still felt it needed something, so I finished it off with a wash of iridescent gold deep (fine). Alas, the gold does not really show up in the scan.

Then I was stuck for a while. Finially I decided some of my gold german scrap might go well on it, because of the golden finish. The window is from ArtChix. They have a nice tutorial on painting german scrap. Once you get over the fear of ruining your scrap, it is an easy technique. This I gave a wash of raw umber craft paint. It tones down the gold.

The girls inside are also from ArtChix. They have great collage sheets. The girls with their presents are from the Happy Birthday sheet, so this became a birthday card.

The birthday packages in the girls' hands made me think of a gift tag. The text is stamped with Stamp Rosa D 58-599. I am a sucker for birthday stamps and have lots of them. To get the placement right, I stamped the text first, then cut out the tag with a template made from a Sizzix die-cut tag (using the waste paper as the template). A little distressing with some stamps and Colorbox fluid chalk cats-eye pads (from their queue line) and the tag and window were ready to adhere to the card with my trusty xyron. I just caught the edge of the tag under the window. I like the dimensional effect, but it does not really show up in the scan.

Oh, and I edged the card before I adhered the window and tag, using some Tim Holtz Ranger Distress ink.

Tags

I made these tags from paper that I had underneath papers that I had been painting with Golden fluid acrylics. I got the idea of using even the "underneath" paper for items from Lesley Riley -- she deliberately paints layers of fabric/paper. I cut tags using a Sizzix die and backed them with Basic Grey papers for added strength (and to give a finished look to the back). The simple addition of stickers from ArtChix completed the tags. I plan to use them for bookmarks, but a friend suggested that they could also be used for gift tags.