Inspire Me Monday: Vellum Overlays

Hi everyone, Elizabeth here and welcome to the latest Inspire Me Monday! Experimentation was the name of the game for this week’s post.  Well that, and the fact that I bought a whole bunch of vellum on sale, and therefore decided to put my laser printer and foiling machine through their paces! I ended up making two Thanksgiving cards that contrast warm gilding with a frosty glow, perfect for that late November holiday.

Please keep in mind, while I’ll be talking about printing and foiling in my post, the design concepts of these cards can absolutely be repeated with your clear stamps and heat embossing: So hopefully there’s a bit of something for everyone today. Also check out a great introduction to lots of other techniques using vellum right HERE on this very blog.

For today's cards, I chose to work with the Bittersweet Wreath digital stamp. While I was initially attracted to the autumnal theme, I also realized that if I was going to layer vellum over my coloring (thus obscuring it), I wanted an image that didn’t require too much time-consuming and subtle shading that folks might not get to see!

I imported the wreath image into Pages (my Mac word processing software), and sized it to about 5.25”/13.4 cm high.  I wanted to place the Happy Thanksgiving sentiment in the center of the wreath, so I needed the wreath to have a big enough opening to accommodate that (but not end up being too big to mail). Here's one go at sizing the various images from the stamp set.

I printed my wreaths on both 80# Neenah Solar White card stock and 29# vellum. PLEASE NOTE: You’ll need a laser printer to do foiling. I got the best printing results from using 29# vellum, vs. a heavier 48# vellum.  The heavier vellum printed up with streaky toner lines obscuring the images.  This is the opposite of what I expected, because when you heat emboss a stamped image on vellum, a heavier paper weight keeps the heat tool from warping the vellum as you melt the embossing powder. Lesson learned!

Tip: If you have a printer that feeds from the front - so the paper path makes a 180 degree turn to exit - you can usually get good results with up to 80# card stock by putting one sheet of card stock (by itself) into the regular paper tray.  This seems to create a less severe curve to the paper than feeding via the manual slot or on top of a stack of paper in the tray. I manage to successfully print on all sorts of heavy paper with my ornery HP laser printer via this method.

While I heated up my foiling tool (the Minc mini), I quickly colored my bittersweet wreaths. There are lots of tiny berries and leaves in the design (that's what makes it look so delicate!), but I filled them in with dots of color, and the image came to life. I found that varying the shades I used for each component made the wreath look a little more true to life.  Not all berries ripen the same way, and not all leaves mature and fade at the same time.

I used orange-reds for the berries, and shades of green for the leaves. But I wanted to incorporate one more color, in order to create a softly lit, but still earthy background. At first I wanted to try sponging some Antique Linen distress ink, but I couldn’t get the coverage I wanted.  Instead, I returned to my copic markers and chose a pale yellow, pale peach and a pale yellow green and blended tiny dots in the background to approximate that same shade.

Coloring done, I started foiling the images printed on vellum.  I like to use parchment paper as my carrier, and for flimsy papers, like the lightweight vellum, I’ll add a shim of card stock.  I used Deco Foil’s Rose Gold foil, and heat level 2 on my Minc Mini.

You can see that I also foiled - but ended up not using - a sentiment that came from the same stamp set.  Since I had the Minc out, I figured I’d foil some extra pieces.  These sentiments can be saved for another day.

Now it’s time for layering.  For the card with the orange frame, I used the whole foiled image.

I anchored the vellum on top of the copic-colored card stock with four tiny drops of multi medium matte.  I had to use tiny clothespins in the corners until the glue dried, but then it held the vellum in place well.  While the glue dried, I made tiny dots of Liquid Pearls on non-stick craft sheet. When these dried, I’d adhere them to the same corners of the vellum, to hide any trace of the glue.  You could make the Liquid Pearl dots right on the vellum and save a couple of steps, but I wasn’t brave enough for that.

The vellum doesn’t sit perfectly flat on the card beneath, so the image of the wreath changes in intensity, depending on how you grip the card. You can also peek under the vellum to see the the intense color below.

If you want to show off more of your coloring efforts, you can choose to use a partial vellum overlay, and I did this with the green-framed card.

Most of the time, I’ve seen folks wrap the vellum around the card front, and adhere the ends to the back. This solves the problem of lines of adhesive showing through the translucent vellum.  But, in the spirit of experimentation, I decided to run my foiled and cut vellum through my Xyron.  This produced a thin layer of adhesive edge-to-edge on the bottom of my piece, which I could then stick onto the card - right over the printed and colored wreath. Let me tell you, lining up the designs was not for the faint of heart! The adhesive was so sticky, and I’m not sure I managed to get every part of the wreath perfectly aligned.  I think next time, if I want a seamless and edgeless look, I will use this particular method with simpler designs or sentiments.

I completed the cards by attaching my card fronts to larger squares of colored card stock.  The green card got a layer of fun foam between the card front and background.  Then I attached my finished card fronts to scored and folded 80# Neenah card stock.

Bonus: When you’re foiling, you’ll usually end up with negative images left in your piece of foil. If these leftovers are in good shape, it’s possible to upcycle them into card fronts! For these coppery examples, I spritzed a little spray adhesive onto the silver side of my leftover foil, then quickly flipped and smoothed them onto some white card stock. I grabbed a couple of large open-shape dies, and die cut through the layers!

Four cards for the price of two  - not too shabby!


Supplies Used:
Power Poppy digital stamps: Bittersweet Wreath
Copic Markers: R05, R08, YR09, YR18, Y15, Y17, G43, YG1, YG67, YG93, YG00, Y11, E50, 0
Foil: Rose Gold by Deco Foil
Vellum: 29# transparent vellum from Paper Source
Cardstock: 80# Solar white by Neenah (card fronts, card bases, 80# Spruce/80#Persimmon from Paper Source (card backgrounds)
Other supplies: Liquid Pearls in Copper Pearl, Xyron 9” creative station, Ranger Multi-Medium Matte.

Inspire Me Monday: Showcasing Vellum

Hi Power Poppy friends!  Today it’s Christine bringing you a little fun for your Monday.  We’re going to do a whirlwind tour through the possibilities that using vellum brings for your card making. I’ve got five cards to show you with different applications.  Let’s jump in!

Vellum is such a perfect material for so many effects.  It adds that slightly-opaque yet slightly-transparent layer, which in turn gives you a dreamy or softened effect that’s really pretty.  There are so many ways to use it!

1.  Colouring on Vellum

A gorgeous effect that works on vellum is colouring.  Because it has a bit of a slick coating on it, it’s very different from colouring on regular paper.  One way I like to use it is to emboss an image on the front of the vellum, and then colour on the back.  There’s two reasons for this, one - Copics shouldn’t touch embossing lines as it will clog your nibs, and two because it blends very differently than on regular paper so using that opaque nature of vellum allows you to disguise some of those marker lines by colouring on the back.   Here I’ve embossed the lovely peonies from Dynamic Duos: Peonies & Tulips with white embossing powder on vellum.  

Here you can see the back of my vellum from the card above where I’ve coloured.  The markers really do blend well on vellum, but you definitely get a stroky sort of look.  But once you turn the vellum over, that really gets muted and it still looks great.  So, there’s two benefits to this, one, you don’t have to be as particular about your blending and strokes, and two you get to use really bold colours and they’re muted slightly on the side of the vellum that is showing.  

Here you can see the difference in what the right-side-up side looks like.  

And here’s a close-up of the finished design with a lovely word die, sparkling ribbon and rhinestones. Always a lovely way to use vellum, and a great style to have in your creative toolbox.  

2.  Softening Coloured Images

I love bold colours, I can’t help myself.  I love colouring with bold colours too!  But, there are times when you want to create a mood or tone that’s softer.  A layer of vellum is the perfect touch.  I knew I wanted to make these gorgeous Ranunculus flowers into a card that could be used for a sympathy or thinking of you theme.  Well, bold orange really doesn’t work for that does it?   

Just layering vellum over the design shows how it softens and mutes the boldness of the colouring that’s perfect for the theme of the card I’m creating.  

Here’s the finished card design with the added sentiment and framing. It’s like we’ve gone from shouting to whispering.  

Perfectly peaceful.  

3.  Layering Vellum 

Another neat way to use vellum is to layer it to make a great statement.  Here I’ve used Power Poppy’s Sassy Succulents set and heat embossed three layers of the hen and chicks image.  Then I carefully cut out progressively smaller areas of the image so that I could stack them together and create dimension.  The one thing that’s important to note about vellum is that because of it’s transparent nature, you have to watch how you adhere it.  Whatever you use will often show through. So you can tell that I’ve disguised the pop dots between the layers with some enamel dots.  With vellum you have to be a bit creative on how to adhere it in a way that doesn’t show.  

That dimension is so great, and the transparency of the vellum still shows through some of the green of the cardstock.  

4.  Vellum Accents

Vellum is perfect for those little touches to accent a card.  Here I’ve created a design with two Power Poppy sets, Good Thinking:  Love Notes, and a brand NEW digi releasing today called Follow Your Heart.  I gave this one a bit of a scrappy-collage feel with embossing paste hearts, words and images and then that pretty vellum mini-envelope and heart.  

Vellum accents could be any little elements that add that extra interest.  Think die cut leaves, hearts or flowers etc.  

5.  Vellum Sentiments

Lastly, I have a very Clean and Simple design that demonstrates how vellum is perfect for adding soft sentiments to your designs.  On this Valentiney card I’ve embossed Big Scripts onto vellum and made a sentiment panel.  It serves another purpose because it also softens that section of the designer paper - just like it would a coloured image underneath.  I’ve sewn the vellum on to hold it in place, but also added little bits of adhesive underneath my accents so it won’t be seen.  

One thing that’s very important to note about embossing on vellum is that because it’s such a staticky material, I always use my embossing buddy on the vellum before I emboss.  It prevents the embossing powder from sticking where it shouldn’t.  I consider it a must working with embossing on vellum.  

Oh, there’s just so many ways you could use vellum on your cards!  I’ve only covered a few, but I hope you play with this lovely style of paper and see for yourself how versatile it is!  Thanks for joining me today!  

Christine