Valley Oak Paper - Handmade greeting cards & gifts

View Original

Washi Flower Power

Cecilia Huster

Washi tape

For this card I’m using a very pretty floral washi tape from a recent release by Pinkfresh Studios. It’s called Garden Bouquet. I love the colors and gold foiling! There’s a stamp set and stencil set too in this product suite, but I won’t be using them today.

When you’re using washi, you need smooth white cardstock that’s big enough for one repeat of the pattern. Most of Pinkfresh’s washi tape patterns are about the size of a slimline card, so cutting a letter size piece of cardstock lengthwise works great. I’m using Hammermill, which is super smooth. 

The first thing you need to do, is identify how the coordinating die lines up with the pattern on the washi. The washi roll doesn’t usually start at the bottom of the pattern. You can look at the illustration on your packaging to figure this out. Typically the pattern has an extra large element at the top. It’s some times called the hero element.  

Cut off the partial pattern and stick it onto a scrap of cardstock. You can cut it out and get a few usable die cuts, if you want. 

When you roll out the washi, it’s important to not accidentally tear it lengthwise. I stick down the top of the pattern first, taking care to make sure the washi is straight on my cardstock. 

Then I stick down the tape with sweeping motions from the center and down. I cut off the tape with my Olfa rotary cutter. 

Die cutting

For the die cutting I’m using extended plates. You can cut washi with regular plates, you’ll just have to put the die down diagonally. I have extended plates for my Anna Griffin Empress, so I’m using them. 

I’ve cut two pattern repeats and the beginning of the roll, so I end up with 2 or 3 of each garden bouquet. 

Because Hammermill is a bit flimsy, I cut the same number from Accent Opaque 100 lbs and stacked them. That will allow me to add dimension without worrying about sagging or folding. 

While I’m die cutting, I also cut the smaller of the circles from an older Pinkfresh die set called Fancy Circles. I cut it once from Recollections Gold Foiled Cardstock and twice from Accent Opaque. Then I stack them. 

Sentiment

For my sentiment I’m using white cardstock and an older Spellbinders stamp set called Sentiments For You. This will be a mother’s day card, so I stamp Happy Mothers Day with clear Versamark ink and then I heat emboss it with Ranger Gold Superfine Detail Embossing Powder. 

I cut it out with the smallest circle from the Fancy Circles die set. I also stack some additional layers of Accent Opaque behind it. 

When I glued the gold foil to the top of the sentiment stack, I got some glue on the front. I couldn’t shift it, so I die cut another gold foil circle and glued it on top.

Then I was ready to adhere the sentiment to the gold circle with foam tape. 

Background

My background won’t show much, but I still went ahead and added some texture and color. For the texture I’m using a Spellbinders Glimmer plate called Geometric Diamond Background. It’s on sale right now at the Spellbinders site.

I misted the back and ran it through my Spellbinders Platinum 6 and got a nice, pillowy effect. Above there’s an image of the sandwich I used to create the impression, using the new Universal Plate System from Spellbinders.

Then I ink blended with Distress Oxide Tumbled Glass, concentrating on the center and blending out. I didn’t take much care doing this. I just wanted a bit of blue to peek out and deepen the shadows under my die cuts.

I started out with an Accent Opaque 100 lbs A2 panel, which I cut down by a quarter inch in length and width to 4” by 5.25”. Then I cut a Recollections Gold Foil Cardstock panel that’s an 1/8” less than A2 in length and width for matting. Then I matted the background on the gold foil piece and glued it onto my white card base. 

The fun part

Now it’s time for the fun part! I’ve got my card base with the background and a thin, elegant gold foil matte. I’ve also got a little tray of colorful, gold foiled washi tape die cuts. For this project I’m only using the warm-toned die cuts. So I’m putting the blue bits aside. 

The composition is going to be symmetric along a diagonal from the top left to the bottom right. I know that I want to place two of the hero elements in those corners. And I want to pop up the far edges with foam tape. The sentiment is going to be near the center of the card, so I don’t want too much dimension there. 

The hero bouquet has a flat top, so if I want it to go all the way into the corner, I’d have to cut off a lot from the sides. Instead I’m placing a little orange bunch of daisies in the corners.

Then I can add foam tape to the tops of the two biggest flower bunches. The stems are going to get in the way, so I trim them off. Then I adhere them.

I’m picking a dark pink flower bunch to go in the opposite corners. I tuck the stems in under the other flowers and pop up the tops with foam tape. This is why I doubled up these die cuts. They’re not sagging or bending around the foam tape. 

I continue to arrange other garden bouquets symmetrically around my diagonal, until I’ve filled most of the card front. 

Then I place some foam tape on the die cuts and some glue on the back of the sentiment and adhere it to the center, a little above the middle. 

Finally I add some tiny gold flat back pearls to the empty spaces around the edges.  

Video

This video is part of a monthly cardmaking YouTube hop that I’m hosting. This month’s theme is Flower Power. Here’s the whole playlist. DM me on Instagram if you want to participate in June.

I show you how to use Pinkfresh Studio's Garden Bouquet to create a floral Mother's Day Card.

Product List