My niece is starting her senior year of college and she has been so crazed. Applying for post-graduation jobs, getting reacquainted with her friends (many of whom she hasn’t seen in over a year since she studied abroad last year), and trying to select\u00a0the perfect balance\u00a0of classes for her last year while still catching a few hours of sleep a night seems to be getting to her.\u00a0So I wanted to make her a special card to let her know we are thinking of her.<\/p>\n

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Two of her favorite things are mocha bubble tea (an ice tea with tapioca pearls) and her miniature apricot poodle, Boomer, so I thought I would combine the two in a totally personalized card. I started with a kraft card stock card base.\u00a0Then for\u00a0the first background layer, I created my own patterned paper using the\u00a0small bone and tennis ball\u00a0stamps from the\u00a0MFT “You Make My Tail Wag”<\/a><\/span> and “Lucky Dog”<\/a><\/span> stamp sets with Momento Desert Sand ink. I cut that layer out with the large stitched rectangle die from the Die-namics Blueprints 15 Die Set<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>For the next layer, I ran a piece of white card stock through my Big Shot with a Darice paw print embossing folder then cut it down with the largest wonky rectangle die also from Die-Namics Blueprints 15 Die Set<\/a><\/span>. I inked the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tea Dye to add a finished look to the edges while maintaining the\u00a0monochromatic color scheme. For the top layer with the sentiment, I couldn’t use the smaller wonky rectangle from Die-namics\u00a0Blueprints 15 Die Set because I needed more room to fit the sentiment I wanted to use\u00a0so I came up with a “work around.” I used the third largest die from the Die-namics\u00a0Stitched Rectangle STAX Die Set<\/a><\/span> and trimmed off two of the sides to create my own wonky rectangle! YAY for MacGyver crafty moments! The sentiment, which is from the MFT Stay Cool Stamp Set<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink.<\/p>\n

For the focal point of the card, I die cut the cup from\u00a0the Die-namics Cool Cup Die Set<\/a><\/span> using 140 lb Strathmore watercolor paper and watercolored several layers of Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tea Dye and Vintage Photo to create the look of a frosty cold mocha ice tea. With a little patience (to wait for layers of the watercoloring to dry between coats) and a little spraying with water to allow the ink to move naturally, the bubble tea came out looking quite realistic. I also cut out four of the dies from\u00a0Cool Cup Die Set<\/a><\/span>\u00a0with vellum so that I could mimic the translucent look of disposable ice tea cups. Then to create the tapioca pearl bubbles I used a 1\/8″ McGill hole punch to punch out a bunch of tiny black card stock circles. When I sandwiched them between the watercolored cup and the vellum cup and glued them into place with liquid glue, they looked very much like tapioca bubble tea pearls.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I knew I had to add the poodle from the MFT “Lucky Dog” stamp set<\/a><\/span> to represent my niece’s dog, Boomer. Because the stamp image has a pearl necklace, I decided to use no line coloring (rather than masked stamping) to hide the pearls with Copic coloring. I used Momento Desert Sand ink and then the following Copic colors to color up the poodle\u00a0along with the bow tie from the same stamp set: E00, 01, 31, 33, 53 (skin and curly fur); R20 (blush); W3 and 5 (shadows); and N4, 5 and 7 (bow tie). Then I carefully fussy cut him out and layered him on top of the\u00a0ice tea cup, snipping off and moving his tail to the other side of his body (so that it wouldn’t conflict with the straw) and tucking the vellum straw over the top part of his torso and back down behind his mouth so that it would look like he was drinking the bubble tea. I also doodled a little mouth with a Copic multiliner pen and hid the stamp image’s mouth with a little blush coloring. Both the bubble tea and the poodle are popped up on double sided foam adhesive to add extra dimension. The final finishing touches were three\u00a0Pretty Pink Posh clear droplets in 4 mm and 6 mm sizes that I adhered with Glossy Accents\u00a0to add a little blingy sparkle (I also think they coordinate nicely with the sentiment about bubbles).<\/p>\n

I know it’s a crazy scene card, but I also know my niece will love\u00a0it\u00a0because it was made 100% just for her.\u00a0I love that as crafters we can create anything we can dream up. We are only limited by our own imaginations. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The following is a video share of this card:<\/p>\n