During our time of social distancing, friendship is definitely a blessing to all of us. This glycerin sponged friendship card shows our friends we miss them and how much we care for their friendship.
Supplies Needed
- Card Base Card stock 8½ x 5½” scored at 4¼” on long side.
- Coordinating mat card stock 5 3/8 x 4/1/8″
- Whisper White card stock layer 5¼ x 4″
- Scraps Whisper White for stamping sentiment and flower
- Scraps of Mossy Meadow card stock for punching leaves
- Polka Dot Tulle Ribbon, 10″
- Basic Rhinestone Jewels
- Ink to coordinate with card stock colors
- Glycerin
- Acrylic Block
- ¼ of a sponge
Instructions
First, take the Whisper White card stock that measures 5¼ x 4″ and place it on a piece of scrap paper. You’ll need your sponge, the glycerin, and the acrylic block. Ink up the acrylic block so the ink covers approximately ¾ of the block. Place 2-3 drops of glycerin on the block in the area not inked. Rub your sponge into the glycerin, really working the glycerin into the sponge. Next, pick up some of the ink onto the same sponge over the glycerin.
With the inked up sponge, start rubbing off the Whisper White card stock on the scrap paper then slowly swirl onto the card stock. Keep swirling until you’ve sponged ink about half way across the paper, making sure the ink is even and smooth. When you’ve reached about the half way point, feather your center edge. You might want to go over the back edge with more ink to give yourself a nice rich color along the back side.
Set this piece of card stock aside to let it dry. The glycerin added to the ink makes for a bit longer dry time than other sponging techniques without glycerin.
Making a Flower
Stamp and punch your flower from the Floral Essence Stamp Set and the Perennial Flower Punch. It will punch out easier if you have two of the three petals along the lower edge of your paper.
Once you have both parts of the flower punched out, you might want to “color” it with your Wink Of Stella glitter brush. As you color it, you will draw some of the color out from the stamped image and get a light background color for your flower color.
Shaping the Flower
Once you have your flower colored, you’ll want to shape your flower. To shape it, use the side of the bone folder and gently run it along the back side of the petal with your thumb on the front side. This is a bit like you are curling ribbon, but you need to be gentle as the card will tear. Do this with all 6 petals. There is a second step to shaping your flower. After you’ve curled your petals back, you need to bend or fold the petal right where it attaches to the center. You fold this upward . This will give you the correct shape for your flower.
Glue the two halves of the flower together to make a 6-petaled flower. Also at this time, you might want to punch out 2 sets of leaves and curl the leaves the same way you did the flower petals. No need to bend the leaves, just curl them.
Stamping the Sentiment
The next step is to stamp your sentiment. I’m using the “Your Friendship is a Blessing” sentiment from the So Sentimental Stamp Set and the Stitched So Sweetly Dies to cut it out. I used the 3rd scalloped stitched rectangle die down from large to small to make the sentiment block.
Back to the Card Front
By now your glycerin sponging on your card front is dry. The next step is to place it in your Parisian Flourish 3D Embossing Folder and spritz it with a bit of water. You just want a spritz or two. Not a soaking, but an all over spritz. This helps loosen the paper fibers so they won’t rip when you run it through the machine with the embossing folder.
Assembly
Adhere the embossed and sponged sheet onto the mat. Take the tulle and place a bit of adhesive in the center of the embossed page. Adhere the tulle down. Next place your sentiment down with dimensionals. Figure out where you want your flower to go, then adhere down the leaves so they look nice sticking out from under the flower. Now adhere the flower. The last step is to put some rhinestone jewels in the center of the flower to add some bling.
And there you have it, A glycerin sponged friendship card. This glycerin sponged friendship card has quite a few steps, but it isn’t hard if you break it down and take it step-by-step. I hope you enjoyed making this card as much as I enjoyed it. Make a glycerin sponged friendship card and send it a friend you haven’t seen in a while.
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