Dreamweaver Free Week--A Shower of Blessings

In this season of weddings, and (at least for my friends) babies, I thought it would be appropriate to show a cute little shower card. Here it is:I used four beautiful Dreamweaver stencils on this card: LJ 905 Rain, LJ 909 Cathedral Windows Small, LG737 Umbrella, and LG 737 Rain Words.

To start, I taped (with removable tape) the umbrella on the light blue shimmery paper backwards. This means that I could not read the stencil name when I looked down. I did this because I wanted that horseshoe shape in the handle to be facing up. Anyway, I pasted this with the original Dreamweaver Paste. I also pasted the Showers of Blessings words by taping off the nearby phrases and attaching it to the dark blue shimmery paper. By the way, these gorgeous, shimmery papers are by Wausau Papers.

While the paste dried, I set up my next step by creating a mask. I used the Inkadinkadoo Masking paper. I traced the stencil (backwards, again) onto the masking paper with an ordinary pen and cut it out around the outside of the image.

Then, I removed the backing paper and positioned the mask where I wanted to put the umbrella. You may wonder why I needed a mask at all. Well, I knew that I was going to be using paste on those raindrops, and I didn't want that raised effect under the umbrella.

Also, I started thinking around this time that I did not want any rain to show under where the umbrella is sitting, so I needed to mask out that area as well. It wasn't quite as critical that I have it precise, so I just took enough of the scrap masking paper and set it under the umbrella like it is in this picture.

Then, I was ready to paste the raindrops. I used Pearlescent paste and sprinkled Art Glitter Ultrafine Transparent #145 Blue Boy on top while the paste was still wet. (Ironically, the same color I used for my guest post, which is up this week on the Art Glitter Blog).

While that dried, I went back to my umbrella. First, I replaced the stencil, and covered it with the Cathedral Windows stencil. I used my Versamark Pad on top of the paste and then covered it with white embossing powder. If you are the type who needs this to be extremely precise, you should probably use a stencil brush to stencil it with white pigment ink and use clear embossing powder instead. Because I was using white on white, I wasn't too worried about precision. I only wanted it to have some sort o texture to the umbrella. Anyway, after removing both stencils, you should heat set the embossing powder. Then, replace the umbrella stencil and use the Versamarker Pen on the parts that you want silver. I did the handle, the tip and the ends of the spokes. Emboss these with the silver powder. Then, I trimmed the umbrella very close all the way around.

When the raindrop paste was dry, I brushed off the excess glitter and removed the mask. I adhered the umbrella in its spot. I used a Crop-A-Dile to punch holes on either side of the handle, and inserted the ribbon, which I tied into a bow. Then, I punched out a bunch of small flowers. I adhered them, some Hero Arts Flower Gems and some small pearls to the bottoms of the raindrops. I assembled the rest of the card and Viola! I was done.

This card turned out just the way I wanted it to. It was inspired by the kinds of cards and the lacy decorative umbrellas that were all the rage many years ago, when I got married. Inspiration, indeed, comes from many things. I am hoping that you are inspired today to make your own Dreamweaver card. Then, you can link it to the Dreamweaver Blog. Don't be shy! Show us what you've got!

Look at the other Dream Team Blogs (linked on the side) if you need a little more inspiration. Ah, even if you are already inspired, look anyway. Make a comment or two--inspire us back!