Snow Flake Vintage Mask Card How To...

I had so much fun making this card--seriously. The StickOn's weren't designed to do this but with a little effort they make gorgeous masked images. I promise it was still Tuesday when I started writing this tutorial out, LOL.

To make this Card you'll need:

Snowflake StickOn's from MOSD--check our Retailer link to find out where you can pick some up
Cardstock for Base of Card
Creme non textured cardstock
Patterned paper--this patterned paper came from the awesome Chatterbox Limited Edition kit being sold at Sams Club.
Shipping Tag--mine came from Staples in a pack of 50 for less than 4.00
Alcohol ink Cranberry
Alcohol Ink Pearl Mixative
Alcohol Ink blending solution
rub and Blend foam tool From Ranger/Tim Holtz
Paper Edge Distresser--Tim Holtz makes one, Making Memories and Heidi Swapp all have different versions of this tool.
a Script or other background stamp--mine is from Inkadinkadoo-a Dawn Houser design but it's an older stamp, so I'm not sure if it's still being produced.
Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Tim Holtz
Black Ink--I use Archival Ink by Ranger
Chipboard decorations (hearts and button)--again mine came from the fantastic Chatterbox Limited Edition Christmas kit being sold at Sams Club
Chipboard Button or Real Button
Sticker this one is from Melissa Frances
Stickles In Red
Radiant Rain in Hot Cinnamon
crochet trim and ric rak--my crochet trim is vintage and was given to me by a friend (thanks Alicia!) but I know that they make newer versions of the same stuff now
Adhesive
Tweezers
Ok to get started-

You're going to chose a snowflake Stick On and place in the lower right corner of your tag. Cut out from the sheet and then apply the transfer paper to the front of the Stick On in the normal fashion---now take the stick on and touch it to your jeans/pants a few times--the point is to take away some of the sticking power of the StickOn--I did this about 5 or 6 times--DO NOT press it completely down on your clothing or it will stick! Just touch it lightly quite a few times to some sort of fiber/cloth surface. Now place it on the shipping tag in the lower right corner--let part of it hang off the edge of the shipping tag. Now lightly rub down on the Stick On--do not use the normal pressure--you just want it to release from the backing paper onto the tag--not be a permanant decoration.

Next Take your foam and blend tool and load it up with a few placed drops of alcohol ink in Cranberry--I'm breaking Tim's rules about not using alcohol inks on anything except for non porous surfaces (i.e glass, metal, glossy cardstock,etc). Make sure you have a cutting mat or protected work surface underneath the tag area (trust me, experience talking here) Ok now rub the alcohol ink over the tag and the StickOn. Keep reapplying the alcohol ink to acheive the color you're looking for. Next add drops of pearl mixative (shake that stuff really really well before you use it) and a few drops of blending solution on the foam and blend tool. Rub all over the project or just in places--that's entirely up to you. Just make sure you cover over the StickOn Snowflake really well. Now let it dry. Don't touch it. Just let it dry.

While drying, go ahead and cut your cardstock base for the card--mine measures 5x7 closed. Then cut your patterned paper for the front of the card--I left a 1/4" border of Cardstock showing behind the patterned paper. Before you adhere the patterned paper we're going to shabby it up a little--take your paper edge distresser and rough up the edges all the way around. Next take a new piece of blending foam on your tool and rub it in the Distress Ink Vintage Photo--rub across the rouged up edges and swirl around on your patterned paper if you'd like. It gives a true soft vintage feel to the card. Adhere the pattern paper to the card stock base when you're finished doing the "shabby" to it.

By this time the alcohol ink should be dry. The first step is to pull of the Stick On Snowflake--start with the edge that you left hanging off and pull gently. It may break but you'll be able to lightly scrape the rest of the Snowflake StickOn off with your fingernail or with tweezers. You'll have a gorgeous pattern of the snowflake showing thru the alcohol ink background.

Next take your script stamp or other background stamp and ink it up with a black ink--stamp over the entire tag. Let dry.

Once the tag is dry--take your paper distresser to the edges of it--once you've roughed it all up--take the vintage photo Distress Ink again and darken the edges--rubbing into the area where the alcohol ink is and over the snowflake area. It's a gorgeous vintage effect. Next break out that bottle of red stickles and apply to the edges of the shipping tag--just follow the roughed up edge and apply a fine to medium coat of Stickles to it. Set it aside to dry.

Once the stickles are dry it's time to embellish with a sticker of your choice--this one is from the Melissa Frances Winter Sticker label set and I love the Vintage feel of her products. I can't leave well enough alone so I roughed up the edges of the sticker and then did the blending foam with the Distress Ink in Vintage photo to it too. I noticed I had to apply more adhesive to the back of the sticker--for some reason the alcohol ink lets the regular sticker adhesive lift off the tag. (just a helpful tip, experience talking) or if you'd like you could add a chipboard piece to the tag---whatever you like! Then you can add the vintage trim and ric rack to the button and the tag is finished up!

Promise we're getting close to finishing it up now!
Take your creme cardstock and cut it 4x6---pick out a few of the Stick On Snowflakes and place them in the lower right corner--you can see from my pic above how I placed mine--you're going to do the same process to them as you did before to remove some of the sticky power. Now we're going to rough it up just like before--rough the edges up, then using the blending foam and the Distress Ink in Vintage Photo rub the edges and the ENTIRE cardstock area--especially on/over the snowflake Stick On's. Let Dry.Now peel off the Snowflake Stick On's--the same way you did above. Then take your bottle of Radiant Rain Cinnamon Red and Shake, Shake, Shake it--get all the pearl stuff mixed up really well--then take your script stamp (or other background stamp) and swipe lightly over it--DON'T PRESS DOWN HARD--seriously, experience talking here and you'll end up at the kitchen sinking washing off the stamp and starting over. Ok so now that you have the stamp ready--you're going to stamp over the entire creme cardstock area. Let dry (you can speed up the drying with a heat gun)

It's time to assemble the card--you'll take the creme cardstock and place it on an angle (see the example above for placement picture)and adhere. Next you'll place the tag on the creme cardstock in the opposite angle (again sorry if that makes no sense but a picture is worth a thousand words so you can see the example at the top)
and you've got yourself a Gorgeous one of a kind Vintage Christmas Card to send out to your loved ones! Stamp a sentiment inside, use a rubon or your own handwriting!

I know it seems like alot of steps but they go very quickly since you can start the next step while the other steps are drying. They would make fantastic gift tags on the pressies under your tree if you just wanted to to do the tag--it would be a fantastic way to do a Scrapbook layout for the snow season and Holiday season--the possibilities are endless--and remember the Stick on's are available in LOTS of different designs so you're not limited to only snowflakes--just click on the link at the right to take a look at all the StickOn examples we have listed here on the blog!