Social Distance - Day 2

Another day, another lost gig.  I can go to England some other year, right???  And think of all of the cards I'll make in April...

Today's card went to a friend I have shared many cups of tea with over the years.

I have long been a fan of texture paste and the variety of products on the market designed to add a raised texture to your work, but the few times I've tried, including under supervision at a stamp show, the results have not been stellar.  Here are a few early attempts from 2017 and 2018 respectively:

Stencil by Carabelle:  Le Temps Passe Vite

Stencil made from Simon Says Stamp Die:  Heart of Flowers

Both of these were made with something called Nuvo Mousse, which is a colored goo with a metallic sheen.  It comes in many beautiful colors, and the idea is that you spread it onto your paper through a stencil, remove the stencil, let it dry, and you're good to go.  But if you look closely at the pictures, at least for me, it's easier in theory than in practice.  Inevitably, I use too much goo, or don't spread it out evenly, or something like that. 

Recently, which means probably at least a year ago, the craft bloggers were showing a wide silicon scraper that you use to even out the goo over your stencil.  It reminds me of a 3" square thing I have for scraping dishes.  The wide scraper sounded like a great solution for me, but I don't use texture paste often enough to warrant that kind of purchase.  But recently, as I was doing a little cleaning up in my craft room, I discovered not a wide scraper, but a smaller one that came as a cleaning accessory with a glass craft mat I got a while ago.  I didn't think about it, but just set it aside and forgot about it.  But when I rediscovered it the other day, I thought I'd give the texture paste another go using the Tea Word Cloud stencil by Scrapcosy/Paper Artsy.

Success!!!  The scraper worked!!  It was easy to use, and with a couple of passes over my card, the surface was even and flat.  Amazing!  Once the white paste was dry, I colored it with Tea Dye and Ground Espresso Distress Oxide Inks (my coloring over texture paste needs so much work...), and added a few tea-related diecuts I had from a previous project using the Tea Time set from Altenew.

I'm glad I re-opened the texture paste door, though it is a longer time commitment.  Card-wise, there's the drying time, but more than that, you need to clean your stencil and tools immediately before the goo dries, or it will be hard to remove.  Both of these disrupt the making-process in different ways, so there's no immediate gratification.  And if you paint the textured surface, that's still more drying time.  In all, this card took over a week to make from start to finish, but I count the time worth it because it was not only great to use up some diecuts that have been floating my craft table around for a while, but to get better at a technique I've long admired.

Tomorrow:  Woodblock Wednesday returns!