Challenge: A One Layer Card

If you look at my calendar here on the well known social site Facebook you will see that it is crammed full of loads of crafty makes to create during 2014. CFG is no exception to this in fact it is hard not to find a tempting challenge drawn up by one of the admin during the month of January. For me I am particularly drawn in by Heather Bees delightful scrapbook challenges and this month she has not one, not two but three layouts/sketches to entice you with. Another enticing tutorial is the one given by Joy below.

For the first card challenge I would like you to make a one layer card. This tutorial is only one idea. There are lots of options with the technique so be adventurous! 

You are likely to need some inks, I used Tim Holtz distress ink in vintage photo and walnut stain, Some stamps, maybe an acrylic block some post it notes and a card base. Mine is ivory and A5 so 14.5cm by 10.5 cm.

Oops I forgot to say you will also need some sponge for blending ink. I've just used a cut up dish sponge but use a blending tool if you have one. 

First mask off about one third of the card using your post it notes. Be careful to make sure they're straight. I used some sticky tape to make sure they didn't peel up again. I've got some plastic below my card. You will want to have something smooth to protect your work top and to work on. Now get some ink on the sponge and using circular movements beginning at the edge of the card begin to add some vintage photo ink onto the area of card still showing.

Here it is all inked. Keep the post it notes on still. We've more to do to this. 

Using a background stamp ink it up with walnut stain and stamp over the sponged area. Here I'm      using a music stamp and will have to stamp 3 times. I need to re-ink my stamp each time and I make sure it is the right way up! 

Here you can see I've inked the whole area. My stamp goes onto the post it notes and sometimes     onto the plastic sheet. This is why you need to protect your surface. Don't worry if you have little gaps where the stamp hasn't come out completely. It adds to the vintage feel of the card. 

I decided to add a sentiment to my card and at this stage I made a couple of mistakes. First my         stamp wasn't completely straight in the block and secondly I pressed too hard when stamping so got a blurry result, but I left it this way so you could see what NOT to do! 

Finally I used the walnut stain ink to sponge around all the remaining edges of the card. 

This is a good technique if you're posting cards as it's flat. I hope you will join the card challenge. I've just used two toning colours but you can use whatever colours, stamps etc you want, just as long as it's only one layer! Have fun,