Once Upon a Time...

The theme for last week's Heart 2 Heart Challenge is "Once Upon a Time"... and I need a birthday card for a little girl... and Close to My Heart has this wonderful unicorn stamp... and I have been wanting to try the Northern Lights technique ever since I saw Kay Kalthoff's video tutorial on it...  Yes, it was all coming together!  In a nutshell, for the northern lights technique, you sponge assorted colors in stripes (I used Lagoon, Pacifica, Cotton Candy, and Buttercup), layer a single darker color over them (Outdoor Denim), and then stamp your design on the background you have created.  The only problem was that unicorns are white, and even pigment ink is not opaque enough to keep the background from showing through.  The solution was a variation of resist embossing.  I stamped the unicorn with Versamark on Colonial White cardstock, heat embossed it with clear detail powder, and proceeded with the northern lights technique.  I did have to wipe residual ink off the embossing as I worked.  For my first try I used sponge daubers which created a soft, watercolor effect:

The Outdoor Denim altered the colors somewhat but was not particularly dramatic and had little texture.  I used the Love Life stamp set from Close to My Heart to stamp the background.  While is not in the catalog this season, it can still be ordered because Close to My Heart does not retire stamps that are compatible with Cricut cartridges.  On my (or any other consultant's) website, click on "My Acrylix Stamp Sets" on the menu to the left and scroll down the page to the "Cricut Compatible Sets."  There you will find all the Cricut compatible sets that you wish you had ordered when they were in the catalog.  I may have gotten a little carried away with the swirls.  Then again, when you are making a card for a seven year old girl can you really have too many swirls (or sparkles)?   Because Kay used a sponge wedge in her video, I gave that a try:

All the colors blended nicely with much more texture.  I had just washed the sponge that I used for the Outdoor Denim so it was still sightly damp.  When I wiped the thin layer of ink off the embossing I ended up picking up some of the ink around the image which makes it look like he is glowing.  For my last card I tried using sponge daubers for the bottom layer and a sponge quarter to apply the over layer:

The softer color stripes below seem to shine through the textured Outdoor Denim layer.  I was also more careful as I wiped the unicorn.  For each card I sponged some Outdoor Denim around the edges before I put the card together.  Now the question is, which one do I like best?  Thank you for stopping by!  Now go see how others have interpreted "Once Upon a Time" at Heart 2 Heart Challenges.  Until next time, Hansi

Materials used, all Close to My Heart unless otherwise noted:

Paper:  Colonial White and Twilight cardstock

Ink:  Lagoon, Pacifica, Cotton Candy, Buttercup and Outdoor Denim

Stamps:  Unicorn Dreams (available only as a hostess reward), Love Life

Embellishments:  Bitty Sparkles, Pink and Purple Sparkles (retired), star shaped sparkles from Michael's 

Other:  Clear Detail powder