Masked Flowers

Hi everyone, Stephanie here!

Today I'm going to share a neat technique that I really love -- masking!
Masking is so cool because you can create so much dimension, but still have a nice flat mailable card! I mail out most of my cards and I really don't like them to be bulky. Plus, I think masking just adds so much interest to a card!

Some tips on masking:
The first and most important thing you need for masking is, of course, some kind of mask! You could use post-it notes or just a sheet of paper with some removable adhesive, but I highly recommend stamping mask paper, like this:

Stamping mask paper is very handy because it's backed with removable adhesive and it's super thin, so you can get a crisp, clean stamped image.

Another important part of making a masked card is planning ahead. You'll need to decide how you want everything to look ahead of time so you can plan which parts to mask and when. I'll admit that I am not always very good at planning out my cards ahead of time. I have to work on that because for masked cards, it is a must!

Let's get to the card, shall we?

Here are instructions on how to make a card like this:

• Cut your card base. My card is 5.5" x 4.25" (A2 size)
• Cut a 5.5" x .75" strip of masking paper, place it across the card where you want your sentiment to go.
• Stamp the small flower from the Layered Flowers (CL946) set onto the masking paper about 10-12 times.
• Fussy cut the flowers.
• Starting at one end, stamp a flower onto the card, just above your sentiment mask. Cover what you just stamped with one of your mask pieces, and stamp another flower next to it, overlapping the images as much or as little as you like. Keep doing this all the way across the card. I moved the stamp around and tilted it a little each time so every flower would look a little bit different.
• Do the same thing across the bottom, stamping and masking one flower at a time, until you have all your flowers stamped.
• Now you'll need ALL of those masking paper flowers that you cut out. Use them to cover every single flower on the card.
• Once all the flowers AND the sentiment strip are covered up, stamp your background image onto the card (I used the Designer Woodgrain (S5208) stamp)
• Remove all the masks and get coloring on those flowers!
• Stamp your sentiment and add whatever accents you want

Extras:

• I drew a black line along the edges of the sentiment strip to separate the space and create a boundary for coloring.
• I added some Hero Arts pearls and colored in the center of the flowers with a Sakura Stardust glitter pen.

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

Just a reminder, you have one more day to enter in the current challenge: Topsy Turvy! The challenge ends on May 12th at midnight EST. One lucky winner will receive:

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have an amazing day!!!

-Stephanie