Elevating Color on Hot Air Balloons
April 2025 Release from Gina K Designs
Gina K Designs has a new release! Once again, I’m excited to be a guest designer for the release, and have some cards to share featuring the new Up Up And Away stamp and die bundle.
To see the whole new release, take a look at this link here (at Gina K Designs).
I’m starting with the first card, but will be adding others soon.
Techniques:
I wanted white clouds, so I stamped and embossed those before ink blending.
Two colors of Distress Oxide inks were blended together for the background of the card front. I layered the two colors to make it look semi-realistic.
I ink blended the same colors inside, but make it more of the deeper blue so it looks slightly different than the front of the card. I knew a bit of it would show around the balloon.
Two of the clouds I stamped didn’t turn out well (I forgot the stamps had embossing ink on them already as I placed them in new locations, so there was a little extra embossing powder that stuck). I covered that up by stamping the two clouds on white cardstock in light blue ink, die cutting them, and applying them over the messy ones with thin foam squares. As a result of my “mistake” fix, I added more contrast and variation to the card front.
I chose one of the larger hot air balloon dies to cut an opening in the front of the card. I trimmed out a couple of inner parts to sure it would be open enough for the smaller balloon to fit through.
To decide on colors for the hot air balloon, I considered the complementary color of blue (which is orange) and chose colors in that family to color with after stamping in black. I used the coordinating die to die cut that. (I used one of the smaller hot air balloon stamps for this, knowing it would fit through the opening more easily.
I attached the hot air balloon to the card with a wobbler. The movement from that, and being able to see the balloon both on the front and the inside of the card are fun touches that make the card seem special.
Colors:
ink: Distress Oxide Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass. Gina K Obsidian. Concord & 9th Powder. Embossing ink.
Copic colors: Y17, YR04, YR02, YR07, RV66
Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks!
Thank you for visiting! I hope you get some time to create something soon.
Links are below if you’re interested in any of the products I used.
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