Unicorn Card

This is a card I made using a lot of dimension and a lot of Scrapperlicious's techniques. If you have not been by Irene's blog I encourage you to scurry over there and check it out. She is an awesome artist/scrapper/papercrafter. Her link is in my side bar under places I love to hang. So, I guess this is a shout-out for Irene (scrapperlicious)!

There is a lot going on here and a lot of different techniques on this card too. If you have never seen Irene's work, well, let's just say it is never simple and she always gives you lots to look at whether it is a full layout or an Artist Trading card! She incorporates tons of techniques and plenty of interest for any eye. Really, her work is just beautiful. If you go over there, tell her Nina sent you and don't forget to come back here!!

So I have inking, heat embossing (if you have never heat embossed, oh my, you really should, it is just lovely stuff and I can't imagine my card making without it!) stamping, doodling, layering and stitching. A lot of these techniques can be found at Irene's blog under techniques. I started out by cutting out my oval and then stamping the words to the left of the oval. Irene's technique's that I used were as followss: 1. I stamped a flourish on a transparency, then cut it out and then doodled with my white uni-ball pen on it.. I LOVE this with Irene's stuff. Then I placed it on pop dots to give dimension, another thing I love about Irene's work! 2. I heat embossed my flower on a light blue vellum and then doodled on that too. Added a pop dot to that; giving it more dimension. 3. I distressed the the edges of my paper with black ink and then used my scissors to rough it up a little. 4. I made a mask/templete of my purple mountains in the back ground and inked them 3 different times to get the dimension of far away moutains.. 5. Although I didn't do the exact stitching technique that she just showed recently she does a lot of stitching on a lot of her projects and I just love it... so I used black and pink here and just alternated the colors with a simple cross stitch. 6. I am not sure if this is on her blog but I know she uses the gold embossing powder alot to kind of add to the distress/detail work... this I have done a lot of on my own stuff for a long time, but I soo love the look of it and added it to the sides of my card here. She also stamps and heat embosses a lot in silver and gold, especially on black and then cuts them out and then doodles on that.. you can hardly see it, but I stamped/gold heat embossed a branch of leaves and cut them out and added some white dots and then tucked it under the vellum flower (kind of under the butterfly on the far left) 7. I stamped the top border and then just doodled with my white and black pen. (not sure if that counts or not) LOL.. I know that these are all things that Irene does a lot in her work, now whether or not they are all in her techniques over there... ummm... I am sure some of them are anyway! :O) Also, Irene uses a lot of non-traditional items on her lo's which I also love, the white and pink flowers were with some old lace my mom gave me. I added my butterflies which were stickers and I made them stand up more to add dimension too. I added the words which are stickers and the jewel. Added some stickles to my unicorn tail and mane and across the top of my card and in the certer of those white flowers in cotton candy. Then called it complete.

Here is a closer look at the stitching I have going on. I love texture, along with dimension. I think texture is a wonderful way to bring lots of interest to anything artsie. The stitching and the soft daisy border are a nice soft texture and also adds interest. Stitching takes a little longer, but is well worth the effort I think. Prepunch your holes with a thicker needle to make it easier on yourself to stitch.

Pop-up dots are cheap and great to use to add dimension to any thing. Since they come in different sizes you can have many layers and add dimension without going too thick and bulky. This area of the card has a lot of dimension to it using pop-up dots. There is actually 4 layers of dimension here. 1. the background. 2. The unicorn is on pop-up dots. 3. The flourish is on pop-up dots in front of the unicorn. 3. The vellum flower is on pop-up dots on top of the flourish. 4. The butterflies with the wings folded back on top of the flourish. So, try out some dimension on your layouts, cards or anything crafty if you haven't yet!