Smiley Guy Designs

The first thing I did was to blob a bit of Tim Holtz Distress Paint onto my non-stick craft mat and spritz with water.

Then I took my cardstock and placed it down in the paint and sort of smooshed it around (and yes, that's an official cardmaking technical term).  Even though these are distressed inks, the ones I chose I pretty brightly colored.  You can let it air dry or do what I did and hit it with a heat gun.

Once it was dry, I used black Staz-On ink and stamped the hot air balloons onto my painted cardstock.  I then took the matching die set and cut out the hot air balloons with my Big Shot die cut machine.  I used a little bit of washi tape to hold the die in place.

I had made a couple of the painted cardstock pieces and die cut more than a couple of hot air balloons so I could select the best ones. 



Then I went through all my 6x6 patterned paper pads to find just the right papers to use - that was no easy task since I have well over 45 paper pads (can you say paper addiction?).  I then decided which papers to use, which balloons to use and staggered them on the paper.  One is flat on the paper, one is popped using one layer of foam adhesive and the middle balloon is layered using two layers of foam adhesive.



I used a corner rounder and just rounded the upper left hand corner of all my papers and the card base and then offset all my layers.  I wrapped a green ribbon around the two bottom layers and attached to the card base.  I used one layer of foam adhesive to attach the balloon focal piece to the card base. As you can see I use all my foam adhesive sheets. I die cut a few clouds as well, used a sponge to add some ink around the edge and adhered them behind the balloons.





The last step was to stamp the sentiment on the front.  I used the sentiment 'Blue Skies are ahead' but since I wanted to use it at the bottom of the card, I needed to cut the stamp apart in order to use 'Blue Skies' on one side and 'are ahead' on the other side.  I couldn't stamp it as one piece because of the raised balloon basket in the middle.  I could have stamped the sentiment before attaching the balloons but to be honest, I wasn't sure what sentiment I wanted to use at that time. It's quite alright to cut your stamps apart....if you want to stamp it as one sentiment later, just place it on your acrylic block together.

Now that the sentiment is on there, the card is done.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and the card.  Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you again soon.

 

Heidi