As I get older, I find myself needing to make more sympathy cards. After watching a recent Gina K Designs YouTube video, I decided to try one of the techniques she showed using Bokeh as a background.

I first cut my card stock down using Gina K’s Master Layouts 1. Instead of using Masking Magic, Washi tap or painter’s tap, I pulled out my Masking Stencil – Rectangles from Taylored Expressions. They have several different shapes and each set includes both the inside and outside stencils. There are a couple of different sizes and work great to mask off a portion of your cardstock. Once I had placed the mask in place, I applies a light coat of Simon Says Stamp’s Sea Glass over the exposed cardstock.

Once I had completed this step, I used the Bokeh Lights stencil from Simon Says Stamp with Lake House and Little Piggy inks from W Plus 9 and Thistle from Simon Says Stamp. After removing the mask, I had a perfect outline around my colored background. I then stamped my focal image from Gina K’s Wild Blossoms stamp set in Nocturne VersaFine Clair ink. I added some black embossing powder over the ink and heat embossed it.

My sentiment is from Gina K’s Natural Silhouttes stamp set. Again I stamped it with Nocturne VersaFine Clair ink and added some clear embossing powder before heat embossing it. I used the Large Stitched Ovals from Lawn Fawn to cut it out and also a border for the sentiment. I mounted my background on some Onyx black cardstock from Gina K and then added it to a white card base. Since I was mailing this card, I didn’t use any foam tape, I just adhered everything to the card base.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!

Supplies used:

Simon Says Stamp: Bokeh Lights stencil; Thistle Hybrid ink cube; Sea Glass ink pad

Gina K: Wild Blossoms stamp set; Natural Silhouettes stamp set; Onyx Black cardstock; Master Layouts 1; Detail Black embossing powder; Clear Detail embossing powder

Lawn Fawn: Large Stitched Ovals

Taylored Expressions: Masking Stencils – Rectangles

W Plus 9: Pure Color ink pads in Little Piggy and Lake House