When I first saw Hero Arts Cathedral of Trees stamp, I immediately saw this card in my mind.
Starting with white cardstock, I stamped the Cathedral of Trees with black ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.
I love working with Distress Oxides. They blend beautifully! If you struggle with ink blending, like I do, try the Oxides. You will surprise yourself.
I knew that I wanted a moon in the center of the trees. So I needed it to be lighter in center and blend out to darkness. I started with chipped sapphire all along the border then moving into blueprint sketch and broken china in the center. I ended up adding black soot around the edges to darken it even more, although this ended up getting cut off in the end.
Let me stop and make a suggestion here. Since this stamped and embossed area is so large, it was really a struggle to wipe all the oxide ink off the trees. If I was to make this card again, I would first ink blend my paper then stamp and emboss on it. We could even start with a piece of blue paper making the blending even easier.
After wiping all the oxide ink of the trees, I gave the card a light mist of water and used a paper towel to dab up the water. Oxides are water reactive and this was the beginning of the stars.
At this point I realized the full moon that I wanted to use was too large. Digging through my stamps, I found this crescent moon on Hero Arts Sky’s the Limit Balloons set. I stamped it in the center with white pigment ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder.
Of course we know that a crescent moon is not nearly as bright as a full moon and I had inked the center brightness for a full moon. At this point I was frustrated and almost scrapped it. But, after taking a few deep breaths, I decided to press on. I added some chipped sapphire inside the crescent with my finger. There’s a moon there even though we can’t see it.
For the majority of the stars I used a white gel pen and a glitter gel pen. You can always splatter watered down paint for stars, which would be easier and much faster. However sometimes I am a bit of a perfectionist and at the time I wanted to place all the stars myself. Crazy, right? I glued down some tiny iridescent stars for a little extra sparkle and shine.
I found the sentiment “you light up my sky” on Kindred Stamps Bayou Buddies set and thought it went well with the background.
I decided to trim this piece down to make an A2 card. I cut the piece to 4 x 5 1/4 and matted it on a piece of black cardstock that was 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 then placed it on a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card base.
I am happy with the way the card turned out and glad I decided to keep going. I often get frustrated when something doesn’t turn out the way I had planned. I’m sure many of you do too. I used to throw those pieces away but I have learned over the last couple years to push through. More times than not, I’m happy with the end product.
“There are no mistakes, only happy accidents” – Bob Ross
I hope you found some inspiration. Happy crafting!
one-little-spark 