1. Cut beige cardstock to size.
2. hand-rubbed Ranger Distress Ink in the color Vintage Photo
using a cotton pad and large swirling motions. You don't want the rubbing to look splotchy. 3. I then added a layer of Adirondack Dye Ink in Butterscotch
4. Keeping the cardstock flat, with the edge just barely over my table (make sure your table is protected or that you don't care if it gets marred, because this technique will mar your table!) and used a Diamond-Coated Lapidary Needle File
in an upward motion to distress the edges of the cardstock. This can be tricky - you need to apply pressure, but not enough to tear the card - you want to sort of "soften and shred" the edges. 5. I then took my ink pad in Vintage Photo
and inked all the way around the distressed edge of the cardstock. 6. I used a scribe to score the area of the card where I was going to place the birch bark "frame" and then using a glue gun, glued the birch bark on top of the scored area.
7. The picture that is framed by the birch bark is a stamping that I hand-colored using Prismacolor Colored Pencils
. 8. After coloring the stamping, I used a Tape Runner
on the back of the stamping and affixed it to the cardstock in the center of the birchbark frame. You can use any kind of tape-runner, but I've found that you get what you pay for. If you buy a good tape runner, your stuff will stay stuck. If you don't, it'll fall apart. :)9. I had some 30 ga copper sheet
that I'd embossed for a project about a year ago and never used, so I cut it down (it's easily cut with scissors) and just used a glue gun to attach it to the card stock. I still need to trim the birch bark, which I'll do with nail scissors, but this card is gorgeous in person. The photo, I think, makes it look a bit messy, but up close, holding it in your hand, it's (if I do say so myself) truly a one-of-a-kind and very pretty! Here's the "almost finished" image:
which takes a bit of getting used to. Once I figured out how to use it it was simple, though. 