Three with Marbled Background Paper

Life certainly has a way of getting busy, doesn't it? The three cards I am sharing with you in this post I created on April 10th. I decided to see what I could make from some of the handmade marbled papers I made last year in a fun afternoon of crafting with my eldest daughter Venetta. I'd forgotten all about these papers until April 5th when I had my grandson Derick (13) over for the day and made more marbled papers with him.

If you aren't familiar with the fun of shaving cream marbling, you have to give it a try. You need a can of shaving cream, a large tray or jelly roll pan, a straight-edge to scrape shaving cream off your cardstock, white cardstock, and some kind of colors--liquid watercolors, diluted acrylic paints, food colors, or diluted inks. I happened to have ordered some replacement inks for a printer that I no longer have so had used those to make my own spray mists and used those for this. I also had a spray bottle of diluted liquid Rit dye, which my grandson and I LOVED, even though we had to wait a bit for it to dry.

So you spray your shaving cream onto the tray or pan. Do it up thick, about 1 1/2" or 2", and about the area of your cardstock. You will probably use up the whole can of shaving cream. For this purpose, I buy the cheap stuff at Dollar Tree. Once you have the shaving cream down, pick 2 or 3 colors to drizzle haphazardly over the shaving cream. At this point, it's a good idea to take a table knife or bamboo skewer and pull the it through the shaving cream to swirl the colors together. Take a sheet of cardstock and press it down gently on top of the shaving cream, trying to get full contact between the shaving cream and the cardstock. Gently lift it off, scrape off the shaving cream (which you can return to your pan), and voila!, you have a lovely marbled pattern. Lay the cardstock in a safe place to dry and do it all over again.

The shaving cream will get colored, too, after you've scooped and pressed and recolored it a number of times, but trust me, you can still get some really interesting prints so keep going. We also tried just spraying the colors on top of the shaving cream, which gives a completely different effect. Be creative and have fun with this! And if you need pictures, I'm sure you can find something on YouTube or in a Google search.

Okay, now on to the cards I made...

This Happy Birthday card went to our stepgranddaughter in Mississippi for her 9th birthday. I started with an A2 piece of marbled cardstock. Then I die-cut a corner butterfly swirl on my Silhouette Cameo and added Stickles accents to the butterfly. I used a pair of edger scissors to cut scallops on the front edge of the card. I added ink distressing to the edges of the back of the card. Finally I stamped the sentiment on the front.

This card went together rather quickly. I used an A2 piece of the marbled paper for the background, tied some embroidery thread around it, and stamped the sentiment in the corner. The Eiffel Tower image is digital art from Create with TLC. This card went to a female friend who was celebrating her 67th birthday.

Again, an A2 piece of the marbled paper, matted on a purple piece of cardstock that I edge-punched with the Martha Stewart doily edge punch. The oval with the rose was cut from an Easter egg in a set from Far Far Hill. I added a piece of ink-distressed paper doily behind the oval. The ticket is another digital design that I ink-distressed. The dots are Candi with a touch of Stickles.