Masculine Birthday Cards using Lindy’s Squirts with Heidi

Hi everyone, Heidi here, today I would like to show you a fun and easy masculine card project using the gorgeous Lindy’s Stamp Gang Squirts to color both the image and the background.

Step 1:

I’m going to create two cards, for each I use two of the images from the stamp set Vintage Motor-Trio. I stamped these onto Bristol Smooth Surface Paper using Versafine Onyx Black ink and then heat embossed afterwards using Lindy’s Clearly Clear embossing powder. This way the lines stay black and crisp no matter how much water I add.

Now I can start coloring my focal points using a light hand. For this, I added some Lindy’s Squirts to my palette and thinned them with water. For today’s project, I used Beaver Tail Brown, Banff Blue, Hockey Puck Black and Loonie Toonie Teal (can I say how much I love this particular colour! It’s this perfect teal colour leaning towards green!) and I’m using three of these colors on each card project. I added a bit of the color to the stamped image fading the color out with plain water, using a small brush.

When dry I added another layer, trying to figure out where my highlights and shadows will go, pretending that the light source is coming from the top left-hand corner. You can add as many layers as you like, I usually add three or four.

Step 2:

I colored each image the same way, starting with a light hand and adding more color in the following layers. Water is your friend, use it to thin down or fade out the colours you are using. Lindy’s colors are potent and you only need a little bit of each colour, once dry they are hard to move, so when you would like to fade out a color do this before it’s dry!

At the end of the coloring process, I have created four images (two sets). I added white Gelly Roll Pen for some added highlights and then fussy cut the image using scissors and leaving a small white border.

Step 3:

Now it’s time to work on the background panels for my cards, for this, I die cut two panels from watercolor paper, two sizes smaller than my card base. On these panels, I stamped one of the sentiments from the Handwritten Phrases stamp set using Archival Ink in Jet Black.

Now that I know where my sentiment goes I applied some The Crafter’s Workshop (white) modeling paste over a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil (TCW854s) using a palette knife and set this aside to dry.

Step 4:

Next, add color to the background using the same (leftover) Squirt colours from the palette I used before to colour the image. I applied the color a little at a time to the watercolor panel using a brush and spraying the colour with water, which makes it run. If the color runs in places you don’t want it to go then dab the panel with a paper towel (personally I don’t like the color running over the sentiment but otherwise I don’t really mind).

I add about four to five layers, drying in between when I like what I have, using my heat tool. This way I can control how dark my background is. When I like the end result I add some splatters using the brown or black color to finish.

Step 5:

Now it’s time to put my cards together. I die cut two slightly larger panels from some matching grey card stock and adhered these to the watercolor background panels with liquid glue. If your watercolor panel is a little warped then you can place this combination into a thick book and let it sit for half an hour. It will be flat when you take it out.

To the panels, I adhered a creme coloured linen textured card base using foam tape, and to finish my cards I now only have to adhere the images that I created on top also with foam tape.

Lindy’s Products

• Embossing Powder: Clearly Clear
• Squirts: Beaver Tail Brown, Banff Blue, Hockey Puck Black, Loonie Toonie Teal

Other products

• Masculine stamp set, Strathmore Bristol Smooth Surface paper, small brush, water, White Modeling Paste, watercolour paper, palette knife, black ink, Lili of the Valley Handwritten Phrases stamp set, birthday sentiment stamp set, stencil, white gelly roll pen.

And that’s it for today’s fun and easy project! I wish you a creative day!