Faux Mother of Pearl

This is a quick and REALLY easy handmade card technique that is almost impossible to mess up. This faux mother of pearl effect is lovely – prettier in person than the photos can show. It is useful not only for sympathy cards, but also for happy birthday cards, Mothers Day cards, thinking of you cards, get well cards, in short – just about any kind of handmade greeting card  except a very masculine card. Here’s two photos of what I’m talking about:       

Here’s what you’ll need to make them:

• Card base – any color, 8 ½ x 11 folded in half
• First layer – white, 5 ¼ x 4 inches
• Country Floral Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder – or any embossing folder that results in deep impressions
• Scrap paper the color of your card base for butterflies and label
• Ink pad(s) for sentiment, and for coloring
• Pearls or whatever for embellishing butterflies
• Tsukineko Frost White shimmer paint (mine was left over from Christmas; if you’re in a hurry or don’t have access to Stampin’ Up! stuff, you can get it from Amazon. But if you wait until June you can order it from the new Stampin’ Up! Catalog.)
• Big Shot or equivalent for embossing
• Butterfly punch
• Label punch
• Sponges or sponge daubers to apply the shimmer paint
• tombow glue, dimensionals, glue dots

Super Easy Instructions:

We’ll start with the purple sympathy one.

Fold your card base so it measures 4 1/4 x 5 1/2. Set aside

Take your first layer – white – and the Embossing folder and run them through the Big Shot. I spritzed the all white sympathy card one with water before I ran it through, and didn’t spritz for the pink one. I couldn’t tell any difference in the embossing, but the spritzed one expanded a little and was warped.

Take a sponge dauber or sponge, pour a little shimmer paint onto something non-absorbent (I used a clear block), and dab your sponge dauber in the paint and start smearing it onto the embossed layer. Repeat. You want to cover the whole thing, but not make it dripping wet. Set it aside to dry. 

here”s a closeup of the card. You can see the coverage of the paint.

Punch out the butterfly and the label from your colored scrap. Embellish the butterfly and fold up its wings.

Stamp your sentiment on the scrap and punch out the label. I sponged around the outside of mine.

By this time your shimmer paint should be dry. Use plenty of glue and glue the embossed layer to the front of the card base. Use glue instead of double-sided tape because the unevenness of the embossed layer prevents the tape from holding well. Because mine was sorta warped from being spritzed, I put it under a weight for about five minutes to make sure it would hold.

Add your label with dimensionals, and then add the butterfly with glue dots. I put my sentiment on the upper third center, and the butterfly on the lower third left. (Use the Rule of Three: Mentally put a big tic-tac-toe diagram over your card front. Where the lines cross is where we should place things for the best effect.)

That’s it! Really easy, huh. And really pretty too.

To Make The Second Card:

Follow the above instructions, except before you dab on the shimmer paint take a sponge or sponge dauber and some ink pads and dab some ink over the flowers and leaves. If I were making mine again I would use a darker green for the leaves – it’s hard to tell them from the yellow flowers. I used lemon-lime twist, and I think maybe “call me clover” (a medium green) would work better.

The glitter paper heart was just sitting there on my desk, so I stuck it on. I think the card would look better without it, but I left it so you could see for yourselves. 

These are super quick and easy to do, and something to remember when you’re in a hurry for a WOW card. I think I’ll make up a few embossed layer pieces so that I’ll have them ready when I need something in a hurry.

Thank you again, awesome friends, for reading my blog. You are the most supportive folks in the blogging universe!

See you next week!

Blessings, Carole