Hi friends! Happy Friday!! Please join me in welcoming special guest Yana Smakula back to our blog. (Please note: our dear friend Yana is Ukrainian, to show support to our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, please see Yana’s post HERE.)

Hello, crafters, this is Yana Smakula for Simon Says stamp! Welcome back for another Yippee For Yana video! In this video I am stamping simple Birthday cards using the Balloon Greetings stamp set.

The idea for my projects today is to stamp a balloon cluster or a balloon background using various colors of ink.

I have my mini-MISTI stamping tool and white cardstock panel already placed inside the MISTI. I found I needed to double stamp each balloon so using MISTI works well. I started with the color Melon, and stamped it onto my cardstock. Next, I cleaned the stamp using the stamp shammy and re-positioned it on my panel to stamp the next balloon. I wanted to overlap the images as must as possible, to create the illusion of some balloons being placed in the foreground and some in the background. The next ink color I used was Cheeky.

The inks I am using today are the Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated inks, they are very easy to clean off a stamp, and it is easy to go from one ink color to another as they don’t stain stamps. These are the perfect inks for this type of stamping. I picked 4 colors of ink for each background. I stamped 3 balloons in the bottom row and next 2 balloons in the row above it, and 2 more in the very top row. I also used Blush and Cantaloupe.

With this smaller balloon I didn’t fill the entire background, but I rather made a grouping of the balloons. I also used the bigger balloon image and stamped it in a similar way filling the background in, since that balloon is much bigger it worked well to fill the entire card background.

You can change the colors to adapt the design to make a masculine card, just pick blues and greens for your balloons.

The next step is to add a sentiment to our backgrounds. I wanted to do heat embossing, gold for the feminine card and silver for the masculine card. To do heat embossing on a stamped background, I needed to make sure the background was bone dry. So, I used my heat tool to dry it. You can set you panel aside and let it air dry, but that is going to take a lot longer, so using a heat tool is a good option if you want to continue creating without making a pause.

Next, I trimmed my panels to either 3 3/4 x 5” or 3 1/2 by 4 3/4”, I wanted the balloons to go outside the edge of my panels, so the size of the panel depended on the balloon placement. If the balloons were spread out, I only trimmed the panel to 3 3/4” x 5”, but if they were clustered tightly in the center, I had to trim the panel down a bit more.

Next, I went back to my mini MISTI and used it to stamp the sentiment. Since these balloons are smaller, the sentiment doesn’t fit inside the balloon. So, I just have the sentiment in the center of the panel spanning across the balloons. I treated my panel with anti-static powder tool, inked up the stamp with clear embossing ink and stamped it. Next, I added Simon’s Antique Gold embossing powder and heat set it to melt it.

I then stamped the balloon strings in the same way – there is one balloon string image in the set, but you can rotate it to have 2 different string designs on your card, and that’s what I did.

Next, I wanted to heat emboss a sub sentiment, and I wanted it embossed on colored cardstock, to make sure my paper would match the color of the stamped balloons I made my own cardstock by swiping the ink pad on the white cardstock panel. This gave me a piece of paper that matched the balloon stamping perfectly! I used my heat tool to dry the paper, tested it for dryness and once it was perfectly dry, I heat embossed a sub sentiment in gold embossing powder. Next, I used a banner die from my stash and cut it out in my Spellbinders Platinum 6 die cutting machine.

Next, I cut a piece of white fun foam, just slightly smaller than my stamped panel, I added double sided tape to the foam and adhered it from the back of my stamped panel. This helped flatten the panel, as it warped slightly from all the heat that I applied to it, and it also added dimension to my card.

I used a foam strip to pop up the heat embossed sentiment strip. Next, I embellished the card with several colorful sequins – I picked pink and gold to match the color of the stamped balloons, I scattered them around the sentiment, this added some playful movement to the card and finally I used a gold pen and added some gold dots to the base of each balloon, this created the illusion of confetti inside the balloons, and it just helped pull the card together. I love the way it turned out!

Have fun stamping!

WATCH THE VIDEO:

SUPPLIES:

CZ Design Clear Stamps BALLOON… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp Sequins HUGS 0123hg… [ SSS ] Pretty Pink Posh SPARKLING CLEAR… [ SSS ] MINI MISTI PRECISION STAMPER 6×7… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp EXTRA LARGE STORAGE… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively… [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively… [ SSS ] SCS-175 Spellbinders CLEAR EMBOSSING… [ SSS ] Ranger ANTI STATIC POUCH ink62332 [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER… [ SSS ] Popular Wagner Precision Heat Tool HT400 [ SSS ] Bearly Art THE BUNDLE Precision Craft… [ SSS ] Gina K Designs PICK AND STICK Tool pns [ SSS ] 9 x 12 WHITE FUN FOAM 12 Pack 118711 [ SSS ] Simon Says Stamp TEAR RIFIC TAPE 1/4… [ SSS ]

Ways to support Ukraine:

If you are looking for ways to support Ukraine, we encourage you to visit this page on Yana’s blog:

Thanks so much for stopping by, and thanks to Yana for being our guest!