Hi there, welcome back! Today is the first day of a blog parade to showcase the Top Down Day reveal over at The Greetery! It’s cute, cute, CUTE! If you’re looking for my Altenew post for today, you can find it here.
The “Top Down Day” portion of this release consists of a stamp set with many layering images, such as you see above, but also includes outline stamps for all of the images – the car, balloons, driver and flower bouquet and of course, coordinating dies for each. So there are options-aplenty! As well, there is a fun cloud die set (delayed arrival to the store) and a striped red rubber background stamp!
For my first card, I went with a soft, vintage-y look that is achieved by not using the outline stamps except for the balloon strings and by stamping in pale shades of ink in muted colors.
One stamp does every balloon, and you achieve the shaded dimension by stamping once with a pale color of ink, then inking up the bottom-left side of the balloon – opposite the “gleam streak” – with a darker ink of the same shade and stamping a 2nd time.
After stamping all of the components, including the girl driver, I die cut them with the coordinating dies. Then I die cut 3 more layers of the car so I could stack it up, adhering the layers to give it more of a dimensional quality. I layered all the individual pieces onto a background of white cardstock dry embossed with a heart embossing folder and some pale green patterned paper. I cut a narrow strip of b&w striped paper to define the transition from upper to lower (and to suggest the dotted line on a road), and stamped a sentiment from this stamp set.
For my second card, I stamped only the outline stamps onto watercolor paper and then painted them in, including a background.
I created the scene by stamping the car first, then masking off the top edge of the car with masking paper and stamping the floral bouquet and the base balloon bunch. I made the second balloon bunch in a backwards way that I’ve recently learned how to do and it makes all the difference!
I started by die cutting the balloon shape from a piece of watercolor paper., but I left the die cut in place in it’s opening and placed both pieces of paper into my MISTI stamp positioner. Next, I positioned the strings onto the die cut (easy to do when you can see the cut lines) and stamped, then repeated that with each balloon stamp. This way of doing it is so much easier than stamping first and HOPING it matches the edges of the die cut perfectly!
After painting the individual pieces of the scene, including the sky and ground, I adhered the 2nd set of balloons overtop of the first set. I used a stitched rectangle die to die cut the card panel and layered it over a polka-dotted mat.
I stamped one of the sentiments from the Top Down Day set onto vellum paper with Versamark Ink and heat embossed with black embossing powder, then trimmed and tore the edge into a sort of banner/flag sentiment piece.
Click below on each of the participating blogs to see what the rest of the team has created with this cute collection! The release of these items today and the ones being revealed over the next two days is Friday, Mar 24 at 10am EST. Be sure to leave a comment here and on the other blogs today for a chance to be drawn for a $50 gift certificate from The Greetery! Thank you for stopping by today and enjoy the rest of the parade!
Heather Nichols
Norine Borys – You are here.
