Back!!

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I could give you a myriad of excuses, but I'm sure you're not interested! I have finished my October postcards for my Yahoo Color postcards group (we need more players - especially Canadians!!). This is a fun group, we have a certain color combination to use each month, and send postcards to each other. I always use coasters for my postcards because I have so may of them and they are very sturdy. This month's combination was "Rust and Metallics". The "rust" part eluded me for awhile, I didn't want to send something actually rusty through the mail, since the postcards are sent "naked" (not in envelopes), I wanted to create something looking like rust with my stamps. I finally came up with these, and using some of Tim Holtz's new masks:






I used the first letter of each person's name on the front of the postcard. This is also the first time I had used Tim Holtz's Grungeboard Alphabet as well. This set had the harlequin design on it, which I didn't discover until I got home, but I think it lent itself well to the rusty look. First, I distressed the letters using Vintage Photo and Mahogany Distress inks. I also used a spatter stamp with the mahogany. It took several tries before I was happy with the rust look. Then I covered both sides of the coaster with tan cardstock. I used the TH masks next, choosing the barbed wire and the fence, both of which look great rusty! I swiped colorbox gold pigment ink over everything, removed the mask. and clear embossed. Then I rubbed on the same Distress inks I used for the letters over the parts that had been masked, rubbed off the excess with a paper towel, then used the spatter stamp over everything and again wiped it off. It's hard to see in the scans, but it does look rusty. Then I gold embossed around the edges, and put raised copper dots all around, and I'm done. I'm happy with the results! In the first scan, I used brilliance Gold, which I didn't like as well as the Colorbox, so I did the rest with Colorbox Gold.