WMS Preview - Day 1 and cloud background tutorial

I've had a few questions about how I did the sky created in some of my cards: here, here, and here. So I decided I'd create a little card today to show you how it's done and give you a sneak peek of some of the May WMS sets. :)

Also, be sure to check out these fabulous ladies for some more WMS sneek peaks today!
Claire
Jennifer
Lynn
Anya

So here's my card today. I figured I'd show the card first for those of you not interested in my little tutorial. Hope you enjoyed today's sneek peek and be sure to stop by again tomorrow for more peeks!

We're keeping it simple. :) The flower images and the bg stamped onto the background both come from Picnic Patterns. The sentiment comes from Fancy Phrases. Both of these are lovely new sets that Claire designed that will be available May 1st.

It just made me smile when I saw "Cheerio" so I figured it'd work so well for a simple hello to a friend. There's a lot of unique sentiments in Fancy Sentiments that I don't have in my stamp set yet -- and "Cheerio" is just one of my favorites.

And now onto how the cloud background was created. :)

Cloud Tutorial
(Click on any of the images to enlarge them)

1. Gather your supplies

• Post-it notes
• Ink
• Paper towel/sponge
• Corner punch (or something to give you a scallop)

2. Take a few post it notes and cut a curve in the top of your post-it note. You want the curve to be wherever the sticky part is. I like to use as many as necessary to cover the width of my paper (in this tutorial I'm using 2)

3. Take the guard off your corner puncher and punch along the curve to create a scalloped edge. Be careful to line up the edges and with my post-it notes, I had to pull the scrap pieces from my punch sometimes since they did have a tendency to get stuck.

4. Here's a completed "cloud top" for your viewing pleasure. Trim the cloud in case you didn't line things up correctly during the punching phase.

5. Arrange the cloud post-its onto your cardstock. Take your sponge/towel, ink it up, and then gently sponge the ink onto the paper.

A few inking tips:

• You an always add ink but you can't take away ink!
• But, that said, a few mistakes won't matter. Especially since it'll get covered up later. :) Just keep going!
• Make sure to rub the sponge/towel on some scrap paper first right after inking. This avoids major uneven globs of ink.
• I tend to do my clouds in just a straight line -- not in a circular motion like I do normal sponging. I think it gives it an "airy" look.

6. Remove the post-its and repeat step 5.

7. I like to change the angle of the post-its a little to create more randomness. The other thing I like to do is to line up a point from the cloud from the previous run with a curve from the new cloud. Not sure if that makes sense, but the point is to make the clouds look like they're overlapping each other. So be careful how you line them up as you move your way down.

8. Keep going until you get to the bottom of the paper and now you have your own personalized cloud background! How spiffy is that?

Other thoughts

• This technique could create a pretty neat hill effect if you do the reverse. Use the other part of the post-it and ink downwards.
• You might also be able to create a neat ocean effect with this by changing the edge of the post-it.
• So many possibilities -- Let me know if you have any other thoughts on what you could do with this!

I hope this helped clarify things and let me know if you have any questions!



Stamps: (Picnic Patterns, Fancy Phrases) Waltzingmouse Stamps
Paper, Ink: PTI, VersaMark
Tools: (Corner Puncher) W R Memory Keepers, (Paper Piercer) Making Memories