Birthday Balloon Card Tutorial

Hello everyone, it's been far too long since I last posted. But today I have a card tutorial for you.

Materials:

- thick white cardstock for the card base (I used Neenah 110lb Solar White cardstock)

- a piece of watercolour paper (I used Strathmore 140lb watercolor paper)

- regular cardstock for stamping on (I used Neenah 80lb Solar White cardstock)

- twine (I used Hemptique 10lb Hemp Cord)

- balloon stamps and a happy birthday sentiment stamp (I used a stamp set from Studio Calico)

- inks in various colours (I used Mama Elephant's pigment inks in: Lollipop, Sunshine, and Eggplant)

- watercolour paint in a light blue colour (I used Tim Holtz's Distressed Reinker Ink in Salty Ocean)

- a paintbrush for water colouring and a cup of water for washing your paintbrush

- an embossing folder with clouds on it (I used Darice's Clouds Background)

- am embossing machine (I used Sizzix's Big Shot)

- a thick opaque white paint (I used Copic's Opaque White paint)

- a couple of cotton swabs/Q-Tips

- liquid glue (I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Multi-Medium in matte)

- double sided adhesive (I used Sookwang's Score Tape)

- some foam adhesive (I used Scrapbook Adhesive's 3D Foam Squares)

Step 1:

Cut a 3 7/8" x 4 1/2" piece of watercolour paper and emboss it in the cloud embossing folder. Then watercolour the sky background using a diluted solution of reinker ink or watercolour paint. Try to avoid the clouds.

Step 2:

Dab the Q-Tip into the paint and then onto the clouds. Use an up and down motion to create texture and avoid streaks. I dabbed on a thick layer of paint to give the clouds added texture.

Step 3:

Stamp the balloons in different colours. And then stamp the sentiment in black (not shown in this picture). If you like you can heat emboss the sentiment in clear embossing powder as I did.

Step 4:

Cut a 4 1/4" long strip of paper. Use one of the ink colours you used for one of your balloons to colour the strip of paper. Then trim the piece of inked paper to 1/4" wide.

Step 5:

Tie the twine around each of the balloons. Cut out the happy birthday sentiment and then paint the background with the same blue paint as the sky background. 

Now gather all of your pieces and prepare for assembling. Use the double-sided adhesive to tape on the sky panel to the top of the card base. Glue the thin strip of paper directly underneath the sky background. Use glue to adhere the yellow and purple balloons onto the sky background. Use foam tape to adhere the red balloon so it sits above the other two balloons. Also use foam tape to adhere the sentiment to make it pop up and allow some space for the twine (balloon strings) to sit underneath.

Step 6: 

Tie the three balloon strings together with a little bow and then trim the twines at the bottom.

Finished card:

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and make sure to visit again, because I have a whole bunch of new cards to share with you very soon!!

Thanks for visiting!

~ Cheryl