Last month I created a card with a twist on the bokeh technique; this is the technique which mimics photographs where the light is out of focus. In the carding world, it consists of a coloured background with white circles on top. I decided to be different, a surprise I know, and do red circles. But whilst I was creating that which was for a colour challenge, I rather liked the look of the background before adding the red. So I made another one.

As before I thoroughly dampened the piece of watercolour paper with the aquapainter and then added crumb cake and soft suede, also with the aquapainter. I blotted the excess ink and water from the edges. I used my stencil and sponge dauber to add craft white ink in various sizes of circles. You must allow the water colour paper to dry thoroughly although you probably don’t need to leave it for a month as I did on this occasion!

I made the stencil using the circles collection and the big shot and an acetate sheet from a photopolymer set. I had a spare acetate sheet after adopting the method of just sticking the stamps directly onto the box inside. You glue the printed sheet inside the plastic cover which gives you an instant nudge if there’s a stamp missing. Until the photopolymer stamps have been stained by red or purple, it’s easy to lose them on the desk. And the staining doesn’t impact their performance.

I cut out the word happy using the Hello You thinlits dies and soft suede card stock, using a piece of wax paper to help facilitate its removal. The word birthday is from the Crazy About You set and is stamped in soft suede also. The water colour paper is matted with more soft suede and held on with sticky strip to ensure that it stays put. This is then mounted onto a crumb cake card base. Rather than lining the envelope, I dry embossed the flap with the hardwood embossing folder.

See you tomorrow,

Liz