Nephew's birthday card

I needed a birthday card for my nephew who is turning 2, so I thought I would make him a card for the daily challenge on splitcoast. Today's Ways To Use It Challenge was to use paint on your card or project. Last night I'd been fooling around with my Lumiere paints (shimmery metallic paints made by Jacquard). I was experimenting with stamping with them on cardstock. This worked out so well last night that I thought I'd use the technique today.


To make the circle background strip, I used a foam paintbrush to apply Halo Blue-Gold lumiere to the circle side of my Dots cube. Once I had good coverage on the stamp, I just stamped it directly onto brilliant blue cardstock and repeated until I had enough length.


With that piece set aside to dry, I stamped my truck in versamark on naturals white and embossed it in black. I painted him using Twinkling H20's in nice bright primary colours. I try to use at least two shades of each colour as I find layering colour gives better vibrancy and depth, as well as leaving some room for shading. I do need to remember to leave white spots, but I find that really difficult (as you can see by their absence on this card!). The focal image is mounted on basic black, then real red. All the coloured paper on this card is from the Bold Brights SU colour family and it's so nice how they work together so well, especially for a kid's card.


All the layers are mounted on a tempting turquoise card blank. The focal image is popped up on dimensionals. I felt it needed a little something else, so I added some dots of cranberry acrylic acrylic paint (Adirondack).


Now all I need to do as add a birthday sentiment inside and some crystal effects on the eyes. (I was too impatient to load this card that I didn't want to wait for the CE to dry. As it was I took a chance on scanning this with wet cranberry paint, but I checked and the dots were below the level of the focal image and my scanner platen is unpainted and my card is unsmudged - whew!)



Notes on Lumiere: I got a package of a bunch of small bottles of Lumiere at my LSS in a lumiere starter kit, and I've also ordered the larger pots from www.stampandscrapcanada.ca. Stampin' Up! used to carry the white lumiere, which can be tinted with re-inkers. Lumiere can be used on a number of surfaces and is easy to clean up with water. I wouldn't leave it to dry on a stamp though. I've used it on acetate and it can be used on fabric as well. The colours are just yummy and so, so shimmery!


I can't believe my nephew will be 2 in less than a week! It seems like just yesterday that he was born. He's such a great little guy and I love him to bits. And cute, man he is just *the cutest* little boy ever! (I'd post a picture, but I'm a little weird about posting pictures of my kids, or other people's kids, on the internet.)





Supplies Stamps: truck from Little Trucks set, Stampin' Up!, background from Dots cube, Sunshine Designs; Paper: naturals white, basic black, real red, brilliant blue, tempting turquoise; Ink: versamark; Accessories: black embossing powder, twinkling H20's, Adirondack acrylics, lumiere paint (Jacquard).