Fly Me to the Moon

Welcome to the Topflight Stamps Blog!

We are welcoming Jenny Colacicco to our Design Team this week. Here's a little more about Jenny.

Jenny is from the UK but has called New York home since 2010 where  she lives with her husband and daughter Ruby.  She started making cards at the same time, which gives her a welcome respite from working in the City.  Her style leans towards clean and layered, and she loves to watercolor. 

It's Jenny here joining you for my inaugural post as a member of the Design Team and I'm thrilled to be here!  For those of you who don't know me or my cards, let me tell you a little bit about myself.   I currently live in New York and work in the city at a bank.  When I can, I love to get inky and crafty making cards. My style is typically more towards the clean and layered style, however I also love to stretch my painting muscles, particularly watercoloring.   My project for today features watercoloring and ink smushing :) Hope you enjoy!   

My project today was created using the Carabelle Studio Little Girl with Balloon set.  For those of you not familiar with Carabelle Studio, the stamps are mounted, high quality rubber and they stamp perfectly - so crisp and detailed!

For my project, I started with coldpress watercolor paper by Strathmore (5" x 7").  I used my MISTI to position the stamp at an angle and stamped it three times with waterproof black ink (I used Versafine Onyx Black).  I then used masking fluid to mask off the girl, and a rough circle over the balloon.

I smushed Distress Oxide inks in Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet onto a craft mat and spritzed with water and Distress Mica Spray in Brass.  When the masking fluid was dry, I smushed my piece into the ink and dried two or three times. I then inked over it with Distress ink in Black Soot, allowing some of the color to show through, and flicked white paint over the top with a paintbrush.   I trimmed the piece down to 4.25" x 6" and edged it with Delicata Copper ink. Before removing the masking liquid, I ink blended white pigment ink gently over the edges of the circle.

I removed the masking fluid with my finger and coloured in the heart and the little girl with watercolor markers and added some Wink of Stella to her hair and the 'moon', with a few spots of white gel pen on her freckles.

To finish, I added some gold twine with a bow for the balloon string using liquid glue, and added glossy accents to the heart balloon and the heart on her dress.  

The sentiment was stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder.   I then mounted it to a card base and called it done!

I hope you enjoyed my first project - thank you so much for visiting us at Topflight Stamps today.  If you have any questions or need more information, please head on over to my blog here. 

Have a wonderful week!
Jenny x