Ali's Cove Handmade: Warm Hugs (One Day at a Time)

Hi there!

I have a ‘thing’ for stone marble designs, whether it’s on cups, plates, coasters or table tops. It just oozes elegance and class. So today, I want to share my latest creation recreating a marble effect background using Altenew stamps.

I started off by taking stamp #3 from the ‘one day at a time’ set and with distress oxide ink in iced spruce and did some 2nd generation stamping differently. On the 2nd time stamping, I mist on a little water on the stamp and with a wide tip aqua brush, I did a quick brush over to take away a bit more ink before stamping on some mixed media paper. This technique creates a nice light watercolour effect and I continued doing this to fill out the whole A5 space alternating the panel in different positions.

Once the first layer is dried, I then took the stamp #4 from the same set and did the usual 2nd generation stamping without misting the stamp with same oxide ink. Once my A5 background is filled out, I took a small tip aqua brush and joined up the separated lines or gaps to create a flowing continuous pattern.

I then stuck down some vellum paper on top of the stamped background with my tape runner on where I would position my focal image. I then traced in some of the swirls partially, trailing off at the ends to define some of the lines with a detailing/illustration black pen in size 005. I then took my gold Calligraphy ink and with a slim metal spatula I highlighted certain places for that ‘elegant’ touch.

As I left the background to dry, I stamped the main image from ‘Warm Hugs’ on to a grey card panel in Chipped Sapphire distress ink, and gold embossed the shadows of the leaves and sepals of the cotton flower. I then use some snow tex paste to fill out the blooms with a clean slim metal spatula. I created some texture by moving the paste around with a piercing tool then trimmed the image leaving approx 2-3mm grey border.

Finishing off I mounted the focal image on to the marble background with some foam tape along the right side. I then used some nail art strips in gold to create a ultra slim border on the vellum and adhered the background onto a 5 x 5 navy card base. I then white embossed a sentiment on a thin strip of navy card scrap and mounted the sentiment off the image with some 3mm foam tape.

I hope this blog has inspired you to give the ‘Marble’ effect a go, I had so much fun experimenting with the one day at a time stamp set that I made various colours and versions, I find adding a layer of vellum softens the look. Here’s an idea, what if we did Layers of stamped vellum on top of each other? I wonder what effect that would create? Anyway, thank you for stopping by.

x Ali x

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Product Used:

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Altenew

One Day at a Time

Warm Hugs

The little paper tree UK

(For all your crafting needs)

Vellum paper