Midweek blog #125 - Peekaboo cards

 Hello & welcome to my blog,

My name is Alison & I am an independent Stampin' Up® demonstrator in Melbourne, Australia. I love creating cards & gifts for my loved ones & this blog will show you how to create something special for those you love. I blog twice a week, once on a Sunday where I mainly showcase a stamp set or dies & sometimes special DSP. My second blog is mid week on a Wednesday where I look at techniques, colour challenges, card sketches, fun folds, tools & equipment & ways to make or improve your projects. That's what this blog is about.

Today I have a different way of highlighting an image when you create cards. Basically, it's a very similar technique to the Spotlight technique but allows you to add more detail.

Here is the card I made using the Thoughtful Wishes & Country Birdhouse stamp sets & dies...

It's quite a simple card with just two colour themes, stamping & some punching.

I started with a Basic White card base plus a 10.5cm x 14.85cm matte. I punched a 2" circle from the front of the white matte & then stamped the greenery (they remind me of corn stalks!) twice using Granny Apple Green. I also stamped 2 more images for diecutting.

Lining up the hole with the base of the card I got an idea of where to stamp an image on the card base so that it would show through the hole. All of the stamped images were then coloured with Granny Apple Green light & dark Blends. The extra stalks were diecut.

I then blended some Crumb Cake at the bottom of the card front & stamped some Crumb Cake 'gravel'  over this. The little bird is from Country Birdhouse, stamped in Early Espresso & blended with light & dark Crumb Cake & light Pebbled Path before diecutting also. 

The sentiment is from Thoughtful Wishes, stamped in Early Espresso on Crumb Cake cardstock then punched with the retired Double Oval punch. For a little more accent I then scraped the edges of it across the Early Espresso ink pad to achieve the dark outline. 

The next step was to put the card together...

I placed one of the diecut stalks to the left of the hole & added glue dots for a little 3D effect. The second stalk was adhered with liquid glue, mostly hidden but some peeping out from the hole.

The bird has double glue dots for some height & the final decoration was adding a few retired Adhesive Cork Rounds. 

The final stage was raising the finished card front up on Foam Adhesive Strips. One little tip to ensure you have some wriggle room & can place it exactly where you want - add some liquid glue to the exposed sticky layer of the foam. This means you can move it slightly if it isn't in the exact position you want & it won't do any damage to the card. 

This technique doesn't have to just be about stamping though! Use the same technique to punch a hole from a card front that has a layer of DSP then stamp a matching image inside the hole so that it peeks through.

Here's an example...

For this card I used Crumb Cake as a base & A Little Latte DSP. After adhering the DSP to a layer of Crumb Cake I punched a 2" hole as I did with the first card. On the card base I used the Latte Love stamps & stamped & coloured a coffee cup lining it up with hole. I then added an Early Espresso circle made with the Beautiful Shapes dies plus an oval for the sentiment. I added some coffee splotches & beans & adhered them to the base. Another simple card made with the same technique but totally different to the first one.

That's it for this card & technique. I hope you enjoyed learning a simple way to add a little WOW to a card. If you decide to try this technique I would love to see what you make so please feel free to pop over to my Facebook page at craftedbyalison & post a pic.

My next blog is on Sunday where I will be sharing more creations made with the Thoughtful Wishes stamp set plus the dies, papers & embellishments that are included in the Thoughtful Journey suite which the stamps & dies are a part of.

Next Wednesday's mid week blog looks at another fun fold, this time a concertina fold. 

I hope you can join me for both of them.

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