Mid Week blog #32 - Using Decorative masks

 Hello & welcome to my Mid Week blog,

Thanks so much for stopping by. My Mid Week blog is designed to be shorter than my Sunday blogs so that I can share techniques, card design or other tips and tricks with you. I feature projects that can be created for beginners & can also be stepped up for a fancier or more detailed item. 

I hope you enjoy this weeks focus which is creating using Decorative Masks. Masks can make a simple card pop, be the base of a detailed card or give you a design that only needs a sentiment. Today I will be using masks in different ways to help inspire you to use masks that you already have or to take that jump into purchasing some for the first time. 

Here are the completed samples that I made using the Butterflies & Flowers masks from the January - June '22 Mini catalogue & the retired Adorning Designs decorative masks from the July - December '21 Mini catalogue. These are just some of the ways that masks can be used & I will feature more blogs using other masks in the future. Here are pics of all of the masks from those sets but I only used a few of them.

The next few photos show the steps I used to create some cute card fronts. The pink paper you will see in some of the photos are pieces of Post-it notes that I placed so that the colours I was blending wouldn't impact areas of the cardstock that I didn't want coloured.

I love how the butterfly turned out & will use this layer in a future card. The colours I used were Polished Pink & Rich Razzleberry. I started with the lighter Polished Pink for the background & the pattern is brushed directly over the top of this with Rich Razzleberry.

For my second card front I chose a floral theme with Balmy Blue, Orchid Oasis & Starry Sky for the blooms & Parakeet Party for the leaves. The lighter blues, Balmy Blue & Orchid Oasis, were mixed across the 4 flowers then I used a sponge dauber & Starry Sky to accentuate the centres.

My final masking shows that the masks can be used for any colour cardstock, not just white. This snowflake strip has Whisper White brushed over it. 

Here are the final 3 pieces again. I love how quick & easy card fronts can be made. I'll post the pics of completed cards in future blogs. I'd love to see any masking you use so please pop over to my Facebook page at craftedbyalison & post any pics you have.

That's it for this week's post. Thanks so much for popping by. In my Sunday blog I will show you a unique new stamp set from the 2022-23 Annual catalogue called Limited Edition & next week's Mid Week blog features a new card sketch. I hope you can find time to pop for both of them. 

Til next time, take care & keep creating! XX Alison