Using masks in your card making

 

While those of us who love, love, love Halloween are already crafting cards for our holiday, my topic of masks today does not refer to those kinds of masks we hide behind at Halloween. I am talking about masks in card making, which conceal a portion of your card so that ink or blending done over that area does not take to the portion covered. This creates depth and a natural look to your composition. 

When crafting a mask, you can use specialty masking paper, masking fluid or even a stencil. But I chose to simply stamp and cut out the image I wanted to cover from a post-it. Here, you can see I stamped a monstera leaf, then I stamped and cut out the same image  from a post-it and placed that post-it over my initially stamped image. My next stamped image will overlap the first one and appear partially hidden, under the first stamped image.  

Now, do not be scared by my supplies list. I used quite a bit for this card, mainly different inks. You can streamline the colors used; I just love to layer different colors on top of each other.

Supplies

• Altenew's white cardstock
• Altenew's Craft Your Life Tropical Vibes project kit
• Die cutting/embossing machine
• Maker's Movement Eres Majia stamp and die set
• Altenew's fresh dye ink mini sets in Golden Sunset, Enchanted Garden and Red Cosmos
• Altenew's fresh dye inks in Evergreen and Olive
• Altenew's pigment ink in Antique Gold and Permanent Black
• Altenew's mini blending brushes
• Embossing ink
• Bronze embossing powder
• Heating tool
• Glue and Altenew's Ultra Sticky Double Sided Tape
• Altenew's Fine Blade Scissors
• Gold marker

1. Cut and fold an A2 (4.25"X5.5") card out of your white cardstock. Also, cut a 3.75"X5" rectangle out of white cardstock.
2. Use the embossing folder from the Tropical Vibes set to create a three dimensional texture to the 3.75"X5" rectangle
3. Use your blending tool to apply ink to the embossed rectangle. I used both olive and evergreen inks to give the leaves more depth.
4. Use your layering stamps from Tropical Vibes to stamp a flower.
5. Stamp the same flower in a different ink on a post-it and cut it out. Be careful to stamp the masking flower over the sticky part of the post-it.
6. Place the post-it stamped flower over your original flower. Next, stamp another flower overlapping the first one onto the 3.75"X5" cardstock. You will be left with layered flowers when you take away the post-it mask.
7. Continue this process while stamping the rest of your composition.
8.  Emboss the banner from the Eres Majia (You are Magic) with your embossing ink and bronze powder. Cut the banner out with corresponding die.
9. Use your blending tool to ink the white cut out banner in Antique Gold.
10. Stamp the You are Magic sentiment inside the banner with permanent black ink.
11. Glue the entire composition onto the 3.75"X5"cardstock. And glue that rectangle onto the front of the card. 
12. I colored the white border on the front of the card with my gold marker. I think a stark white would have been jarring and the gold border complimented  the metallics used in the sentiment. 

Sometimes you may choose to use store bought mask sets. In this Halloween card, I used the cutouts sold in the Tim Holtz's moon masking set. First I used the full moon cutout to draw the moon, ink it and cut it out. Then, I layered the stencil with the moon pitting over the inked full moon. I then used my ink blending tool over the second stencil with the surface irregularities. 

I love how it turned out!