Valentines Mice

Thank you for stopping by! Today I am sharing my last post as a guest designer for the Just Us Girls Challenge. I really enjoy this challenge as they have a great variety of themes and provide great inspiration. Today starts challenge #569 for Wild Card Week, and the theme is “masking.”

My card features two different ways of masking. I took a few pictures to illustrate both. The set I am using is new from Colorado Craft Company, I just couldn’t resist these little mice! I started by stamping them on a piece of Xpress-It blending card.

Next I carefully applied Molotow masking fluid over them. When the masking fluid dries it makes a resintent barrier to whatever is underneath it. (I also heat embossed the sentiment.)

Next I went on to my second method of masking, and that was to cut a heart out of a piece of masking paper that would fit over the mice.

To make the blended heart around the mice I put the negative piece of masking paper over the base. This left the masked mice show through and protected the rest of the background.

Next I used a blending brush and applied some pink distress oxide ink. I worked in from the edges, making sure to leave some white area in the center. With the masking liquid over the mice I didn’t have to worry about how much ink got on them. You can see how that looked before I took off the mask in the photo below.

After removing the masking paper I used the heart shaped piece that was cut from the middle and placed that over the heart I just blended. Using a stencil and a darker shade of distress oxide ink I added the hearts around it.

Below you can see the final result when the heart in the middle was removed. (And after I removed the blue masking fluid and colored the mice with Copic markers!)

I wasn’t quite done, I thought there needed to be a little separation between the background and the shaded heart, so I used a fine point marker to add some black stitching. I then cut the whole panel out with a stitched rectangle die cut, and mounted it on a black card base. I finished it off by heat embossing the “love is in the air” sentiment.

Additional challenges I would like to join:

Watercooler Wednesday #306 – All About Occasions

Krafty Chicks #544 – All Occasions

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies #2104 – Anything Goes

Sisterhood of Crafters – create your own background

13 Replies to “Valentines Mice”

  1. WOW very clever … thanks for sharing all the details. A masking method I had not tried before … hmmm, adding that to my list! LOL Beautiful card and of course the background is perfect! Well done! Thanks so much for joining in the fun at our Sisterhood of Crafters challenge! Good Luck and we hope you’ll come back often.

    Darlene
    SISTERHOOD OF CRAFTERS
    DAR’S CRAFTY CREATIONS
    Please stop in for a visit!

  4. Awesome masking by using both the Molotow masking fluid and the masks. I love how that heart frames those cute little mice. Thanks for joining us this past month with all of your amazing creations!

  8. This came out so well and is really darling! I really enjoyed seeing the pics of your process! You have been a fabulous guest this month Melanie! Stay safe and we hope to see you back in the gallery soon.

  9. Your little mice are adorable; your masking super impressive! Thank you for sharing how-to details and, especially, for being an amazing, inspiring guest designer this month!
    ~carol

  11. Wow! I’m so impressed with all the masking techniques you used to create this very cute card! I love those mice and was so tempted to purchase them. Thanks so much for joining us all month at JUGs and I hope to see you in the gallery soon!

  12. I love that you gave options for masking, Melanie. It helps those checking out your card to see what possibilities there are for what they can do. And the result is an absolutely darling card. Thanks for being our guest designer this month.

  13. Your card is as cute as can be! What a sweet background for those two lovebirds. Thanks so much for joining TSOC challenge. Best of luck to you!

Comments are closed.