Ocean Life Card Trio with Alcohol Pearls

With the temperatures finally starting to rise in my neck of the woods, I’m already looking forward to beach season! I’ve been dying to use this jellyfish background stamp from Hero Arts for a while, so thought it would be the perfect choice for my first post as a new designer for their challenge blog – A Blog Named Hero. If this is your first time visiting my blog…welcome, I hope you stay and take a look around!

I started by applying four colors of Alcohol Pearls to two different sheets of white yupo paper (Tranquil, Envy, Celestial, and Sublime). For the panel on the left, I added ink dropwise in different areas and then just kinda hosed it down it with Alcohol Blending Solution until the colors mixed and flowed together. The right panel started the same way, but I blending the colors by applying blending solution to my ink applicator and pouncing all over the sheet instead. I love the variety of looks you can get with the same colors just by using slightly different blending techniques.

I then took the “pounced” panel and lifted the jellyfish pattern from it using Alcohol Lift Ink before stamping it onto some Neenah Solar White cardstock. The first impression was very pale because my alcohol background was a bit light to start with, so I repeated the lifting technique three times to intensify the pattern on the white cardstock using my MISTI.

Cutting up my panels allowed me to make multiple cards as well as create a cool positive-negative effect on the same card as shown above. After lining up the patterns exactly, I added a thin strip of Aquatic cardstock to define the edge a bit more. Then, I die cut the thanks sentiment out of the same Aquatic cardstock five times and adhered them together above the edge for a bold look.

The second part of the original alcohol ink background is paired up with a plain white panel cut at an angle on this card. After matting the cardfront with Aquatic cardstock, I added a sentiment from an older My Monthly Hero Kit (September 2018).

A happy accident struck when working with my second alcohol-inked background. You see, I thought I was embossing the jellyfish pattern with white embossing powder, but accidentally used White Satin Pearl Embossing Powder instead. The result was a much more muted look than I wanted, but rather than scrap the whole thing, I experimented with it instead. By adding alcohol blending solution over the embossed panel with my ink applicator, I was able to remove most of the ink except where it was trapped under embossing…and I love the effect!

I trimmed out my favorite part of the background and dropped it beneath a few panels of white cardstock lined with thin strips of Aquatic cardstock. The sentiment was stamped in the lower right using a fitting phrase from the March 2019 My Monthly Hero Kit.

I hope you enjoyed this trio of ocean life cards and thanks so much for stopping by today! A new challenge begins over at A Blog Named Hero on April 15th with great prizes from Hero Arts, so I hope you’ll join us!