Pinkfresh Studio Monthly Challenge
June 2023
Good day, fellow crafters. Today I'm extra excited to share my entry into the Pinkfresh Studio Monthly Challenge! As a passionate crafter and artist, I've created many various shapes and styles of paper crafts, but this marks my first experience creating slime line cards. While it does limit the size of your canvas, a slim line card helps to create a more defined focal area which for this challenge is actually perfect for what I have in mind.
In this challenge, the spotlight is recommended to focus on Pinkfresh Studio products, but don't worry if you don't have any as this isn’t a deal breaker for entry, you can still participate and I encourage you do consider it. So, grab your supplies and join me as we dive into the delightful realm of card-making with a touch of Pinkfresh Studio magic!
To create the foreground focal point for these cards, I first begin with a piece of premium white cardstock, the Pinkfresh Studio Floral Notes stamp and stencil set and its corresponding die, my Misti stamping tool, and pigment inks. Although I didn't have Pinkfresh Studio inks, I found similar colors from Gina K and Altenew that were in my collection. I used Gina K's Bubblegum Pink and Peach Bellini, as well as Altenew's Warm Sunshine, Sweet Leaf, and Tide Blue. To add visual depth, I chose Memento's London Fog for the outline of the floral design.
From the start of this process, I intended to make a large batch of these cards all at once so the use of a Misti and the design of the Pinkfresh Studio set were invaluable. First I loaded the white cardstock into my Misti and aligned the floral stamp, making sure it adhered well to the Misti. I then inked up the stamp in London Fog and stamped the image for all of my cards one at a time, reinking as necessary. This of course went really quickly and by the time I was finishing the last one the ink on the first one was dry and ready for the next step. That next step was to align the individual stencils of the set and ink blend the colors required for each of the flowers and or leaves in turn. Again this went very smoothly and the results were fantastic. Once they were all completed and dry I used the corresponding die to cut them all out.
The next step in the process was to create the background. To accomplish this I took a sheet of sunny yellow cardstock, misted the back lightly, and put it into the Intertwined Vines embossing folder from Spellbinders (EOM-AUG22). Wondering why I mist the cardstock? Well, moisture plays a crucial role in helping the cardstock fibers bend rather than break when pressure is applied during embossing. For a clean outcome, I passed the embossing folder through the machine a couple of times, ensuring crisp and defined lines. Please note that the particular embossing folder I used was part of a monthly subscription package and may not be directly available from Spellbinders at the time of writing. However, you can explore alternative suppliers to find it. Once the background was complete, I trimmed it to its final size using Hero Art’s Slimline and Bookmarks Infinity Die set (DB1871), matted it with a complementary green cardstock, and affixed it onto a slimline card base in a cream shade. While this look alone is stunning, we can't forget to add the star of the show—the focal point from PFS.
As I mentioned the focal point of this project turned out fantastically, and I really loved how easy it was to change the look of each of the cards by just varying which color the flowers were inked. I then quickly decided that they needed some extra pop to showcase them so instead of surface mounting them to the background, which is as I already mentioned gorgeous, I raised them all up with some foam tape. This provided the right amount of dimension to really tie these two pieces together as a unified design.
To finish the card, I needed to find the perfect way to mount the sentiment. While surface mounting to the background was an option, I felt that the intricate details of the embossing folder still deserved to shine and not be overshadowed just like the PFS floral focal point. In the end, I decided to surface mount the sentiment to the focal point and utilize some pop dots to get a little depth at the same time. I stamped the sentiment from the same PFS stamp set in the London Fog to tie it into the focal point. The end effect sort of resembles a floral swag over a door frame I have in my own home. Lastly, I added a bit of shimmer by incorporating some flat-backed pearls from Kat Scrappiness in the color Bumble Bee, which brought out a chuckle since it was a floral card.
I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough and found inspiration to create your own cards or other papercrafts. If you do decide to enter be sure to tag me so that I can see what you have created. Be sure to leave a comment below, it helps me see that my posts are being seen.
