Today is the last day, and I am finally doing my own challenge. The sample cards are ones I made a long time ago, and I definitely have lost the touch since then. I have some rejects that I'm going to try to use for die-cuts. One is so bad, it might not even serve that purpose. I had used Tim Holtz's round applicator and I ended up with inked scallops instead of soft shading.
I liked the backgrounds posted here, and they seemed to have more spacing than I used before so I made my first backgrounds with 5/8" spacing. I liked them and made several, but I wasn't thrilled with the shading. I added more with an almost dry applicator to a couple of pieces and that helped. Then I switched back to 1/2" spacing, and that seemed to work much better. The way I was shading seemed to fit that spacing better, and the puffy look was more pronounced.
I used Distress Inks for the first backgrounds. When I tried to pick one out for the background for my card, they were all too dark and dominated the card. I had made them too dark. I decided to use some old Memories Ink Pads that I had. They were made for Hero Arts Shadow Stamps way back when so the colors are soft. I was so happy to discover that the ink had not dried out. The first thing that happened was that this ink dissolved my permanent black line on the plastic piece I was using. To make a long story a bit shorter, I ended up pulling out my EK Success glass mat that has grid marks a quarter inch apart. I used that and an unmarked piece of plastic to do the last two backgrounds with half-inch spacing. I love the way these turned out. I tried not to press so hard. Instead I just went over the any areas that needed it.
I found that if I inked the applicator and then tapped it along the edge of the plastic piece before applying it to the cardstock, I got better results. I noticed that when I was almost done, I started getting heavier lines so I had to remind myself to slow down and take my time.
That helped a lot!
Here are
the backgrounds.Here is
my card..
This is the first Christmas card I've made this year!
TFL.
Daria