Hello Crafty friends. I hope you are staying out of trouble! I have a set of five (well, 16 actually) cards to share with you today.

We have a group of students graduating here in Japan that don’t even know whether they will see each other for graduation. The State of Emergency continues here in Tokyo, although we do see a little light at the end of the tunnel. I hope these cards bring some encouragement to our senior students.

I made 16 cards in all, and that means a LOT of ink blending! To make these cards, I first ink blended onto the front of coloured card bases. Blending 16 cards can be hard on the hands, so I had two strategies to help me through. The first was the Ergonomic Blending Brush, which has a lovely big brush compared to most brushes, and also a well shaped handle which sits nicely in the hand. You can see the brush in the picture below. It’s very different to the other brushes I own, and I use it on most cards I make. Secondly, I started with coloured card, which meant that I only had to blend the medium and dark colours onto the bottom two thirds of the card, and I could leave the top untouched.

While I’m mentioning the Blender Brush, I know many people were disappointed when the first and second shipments sold out so quickly, but the third shipment is now in, and at the time of this going live, there are still brushes in stock. If you missed out the first two times, now is a good time to order! Here is the link to the brushes in the Pink and Main store.

Once I had the bases blended, I used the Beaded Curtain Cover Die and cut 16 from white cardstock, before glueing them flat to the cards.

Finally, I added the sentiment. Both parts of this sentiment come from the Going Places stamp set, I stamped the larger word onto white card, and heat embossed the smaller sentiment onto black paper with white embossing powder. I used the sentiment strips dies to cut the black strip. These dies are fabulous. I love having exactly the right length for any sentiment. I glued the white card flat, and popped the black strip up with foam tape.

I hope you are keeping both safe and sane in these crazy times. I look forward to sharing more cards with you soon.

Blessings,

Donna