Card Factory 2015–Brusho Trees

Following my first Brusho experiments using the Inkylicous clear stamp set “Simply Trees,” this morning I made the four best ones into cards. My studio became a matting and layering factory for the morning! I think I am definitely improving with this skill and most of them look pretty straight, which was not how it used to be in the old days…

I have thrown out sample #1 as unusable, but have decided to use #2 which was borderline. It does look better mounted.

I went through my stash and extracted various papers and cards suitable for matting and layering these designs, and again spent some time deciding on different combinations.

Design #2

I chose a sheet from a small pack of marbled papers for the main background layer for this card. All the cards have a narrow matt layer of glitter card from another pack. These are in colours that I know I shall never use for anything else, and I am not keen on the colours on their own, or on glitter card in general, but in conjunction with other papers and as matt layers for cards, I can use up a lot of stash that really does nothing for me! I bought quite a bit of paper back in the days when I was starting, and not sure what I really wanted to do, and some of these purchases turned out to be a bit of a mistake until now! I am determined to use up a lot of the clutter in my studio so that I can have room for more useful stuff.

Preparing to stick the layers down, I thought that the exposed white card of the base looked a little stark, so to soften it, I distressed the edges with Forest Moss distress ink, which definitely improved its appearance.

Here is design #2 complete.

Design #3

Another pack of paper is quite thin, verging on tissue paper. It has real leaves embedded in it. I used this paper in different colours for the remaining three cards. For this one, I chose a cream-coloured glitter card for the narrow matt layer.

When the leaves paper was stuck down onto the base card, the very edge of this white card was visible, so I ran my home-made ink blender around the edges with some of my new Fossilised Amber distress ink.

The finished card.

Design #4

For this card, I chose a yellow glitter card for the narrow matt layer, and the natural coloured paper from the leaves pack.

I distressed the edges of the base card covered with the leaves paper, using Vintage Photo distress ink.

Here is the finished card.

Design #5

For the final design, I chose a green sheet from the leaves pack. When this was laid over white (the colour of the base card in each case), because it was so thin, it looked a bit washed out, so I glued it down onto the plain orange card seen in the above photo, to give it a slightly richer appearance. Once trimmed, this double-layer was glued down onto the base card.

In this case, I distressed the edges with Forest Moss distress ink.

The finished card.

Here are the cards made from designs # 2 and 3.

The cards made from designs #4 and 5.

As usual, I have left these cards blank inside, so that I can add appropriate sentiments when I need to use them, with the exception of design #3. We are going to a birthday supper tonight, so this card hasn’t even made it into my new card stash! Using Forest Moss distress ink, I stamped the “Happy Birthday” sentiment onto a scrap of white card, which I trimmed to size and coloured with Fossilised Amber distress ink, using a home-made ink blender, and then matted onto more of the cream glitter card. I stuck this down onto the base card, and then stamped the same sentiment inside, again using Forest Moss distress ink, and applied some Fossilised Amber distress ink over the stamping to give it a bit more impact. This stamp is one of a collection of clear sentiment stamps that I have had from when I first started, and I no longer have the packaging so I do not know the name of the set, or the manufacturer.

Here is design #3 in birthday card mode.

Despite this being my first attempt at using Brushos, I am pretty happy with the results, and think they have come out quite nicely mounted as cards. This is definitely something I am going to again, using a variety of different stamps.