Graffitti Sentiment

Hi all.  Sorry it has been so long since my last post but I seem to have had such a lot of things going on lately which have taken me away from cardmaking and left me rather lacking inspiration, but I have kept up with the comments and looking at what this talented community has been getting up to,  and I do mean to do better!  I made this card with the Addicted to CAS challenge in mind, which is to use green, but now I have finished it I think it is probably not CAS enough.  Anyway it is intended for a birthday later in the month and I am sure there are other challenges which it will be fit for.

I used Tim Holtz  Bricked embossing folder, but first I inked a snippet of white card using Distress Inks in Mowed Lawn, Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed using the 'smooshing' technique which seems to be very popular and this lady Betsy is very good at it, and you can find her here.  This is similar to the acrylic block technique but uses a piece of acrylic sheet to mix the inks and water on and makes it easier if you want to make a larger background.  I used Distress Inks Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade and did the process several times until the card was adequately covered.   I dried the card with my heat tool and then embossed using the Bricked EF.  I had to run the card through twice and matched up the pattern as well as I could in order to cover my square piece of card.  

I stamped the Clarity stamp, which is one I received through the Clarity Stamp Club, using Adirondack Inks in Lettuce and Bottle.  I stamped with the Lettuce first and then stamped it again using the Bottle just round the edges.  I moved it down a little to get a shadow effect which gives it a looser look.  I then used my Spectrum Noir pencils to bring out the letters and add a little shading.

I finished by making the Ivy using a Creative Expressions die by Sue Wilson called Trailing Ivy, using snippets of light and dark green card.  Unfortunately the dark green looks more blue then green in the photo.  I also used a snippet of the same dark green card for the sentiment which was made with a Britannia Die which allows you to make a Birthday and a Christmas sentiment so is very useful. 

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 168 where we are on a mission to use up our snippets of paper and card.
Virginia's View Challenge - All Things Embossed.
Country View Challenges - Anything Goes.
Stamping Sensations - One for the Guys.