Orient Enchantment Event: In-Depth Look at Projects

Hello again, Lost Coasters, and welcome to a post where I'll tell you how I made each of the projects that were posted to the Portal to Creativity in the hopes of inspiring you to participate in our Orient Enchantment event.

I made three ATCs using stamps from the India Set ...the first is "Do More Than Exist," whose directions are the simplest...

I stamped the god from the India set onto a gelli print, then colored him with creamy colored pencils (leaving some of the background showing through) and with white and shimmery copper gel pens. Then I affixed stick-on copper gems to the card and outlined the pattern with more white and copper gel pen. Oh, and added a text label, of course!

For "Talk To The Hand," I scraped some white gesso onto heavy cardstock with a palette knife and let it dry. This gave a bit of texture and a nice base for the next layer. I got out some Distress Crayons, scribbled some color here and there, and blended it with my fingertip (the gesso helps the Crayons smear more evenly than they do on plain paper).

Using permanent black ink, I stamped the Calligraphy Square from Carmen's Veranda for a little background interest. Next I stamped the mehndi hand from the India Set, colored it with gel pens in fluorescent and glitter greens as well as metallic golds and white, and cut it out and collaged it to the card along with the computer-generated sentiment.

To finish the card, I scraped some black glitter paste through a stencil to get the little ball effects on the sides...added 3D dots made of shiny white Enamel Accents and metallic gold Pearl Pen...and edged the whole piece in more black glitter paste. This added dimension and texture to the finished ATC.

For "I Is For Indian Peafowl," I first stamped the peacock from the India Set onto white cardstock and masked him off, then stamped the Taj Mahal behind him and masked that off. Next I applied Distress Inks with a mini blending tool around the masked images, then used the spritz-and-flick method to forcefully apply water droplets to give a mottled effect to the ink background.

Next I stamped the Clover Scroll Border along the bottom of the ATC and embossed the image with silver powder. I colored the clover scrolls with colored pencils, and added a border of dots made with metallic blue, gold, and white gel pens.

I painted the peacock with various colors of Twinkling H2Os--the shimmer on him was amazing in real life! Since the famous mausoleum is white, I left the Taj Mahal uncolored, revealing the plain white cardstock underneath the mask.

Lastly, I stamped and embossed the capital I from the Old Typewriter Alphabet, collaged the genus label onto the card, and edged it all in black chalk ink.

And there you have three very different ATCs, but all with a touch of exotic India. I hope you have fun with the India Set (there are many more wonderful stamps included with it than shown by these three projects!), or check out the Persian and Asian stamp sets from Lost Coast Designs as well for a little more Eastern flavor.