Our Home Card & Corroded Metal Technique

This week's theme at Card A Day Blog is "New Home".  I've had the Cloud 9 Design "Home" stamp set in the stash for a while and thought this the perfect time to finally bust it out.  I am LOVING the color scheme on this card.  Coral, soft spring green, and a dash of grey tones...sweet!

A Few Details:

• I stamped the house onto beige patterned paper with brown StazOn and then highlighted it with markers for color.  To make the window look like glass, I used a white Glaze gel pen to draw some diagonal lines like reflections.  The door knob is a teeny tiny dot of Liquid Pearls.  I think these few touches really make the house image "pop".

• The top border was punched and meant to be reminiscent of the top of a wrought iron gate...yet softer.  Thus the spring green patterned paper and accents of Liquid Pearls.  

• That vintage-y key is actually chipboard that I made look like corroded metal in a few easy steps:

1. Color chip board completely with Bundled Sage Distress Stain, then add a few touches of Brushed Corduroy stain.
2. Blot lightly with gold metallic pigment ink
3. Cover with Versamark ink
4. Cover with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) and heat until UTEE is melted.  Only do one coat of UTEE...the uneven, bumpy surface is what makes it look corroded.
5. Apply one drop of Silver Mixative, two drops of Copper Mixative, and four drops of Alcohol Ink blending solution to a felt blending pad and dab the entire surface of the key.  This knocks the shine off the UTEE and adds just a touch of metallic shimmer.

And finally, a "lessons learned" tip...always, ALWAYS test a new stamp on a scrap piece of paper before going full-bore onto your beautiful patterned paper!  Ugh.  Yep, the "Our Home" stamp did not stamp well and I had to fill in 80% of it with a brown pen.  Now here's the question...if I hadn't fessed up, would you have known about that boo-boo?  :-)

Challenges:
Simon Says Stamp & Show:  No Rules!

Supplies:
Cardstock:	Papertrey Ink ‘Kraft’
Patterned Paper:	My Mind’s Eye Lost & Found Two ‘Rosy’ 6x6
Stamps:	Cloud 9 Design ‘Home’
Inks:	StazOn ‘Timber Brown’; Le Pen ‘Brown’; Martha Stewart craft markers; Glaze pen ‘White’; VersaMark; Encore Ultimate Metallic ‘Gold’; Distress Stain ‘Bundled Sage’, ‘Brushed Corduroy’; Alcohol Ink ‘Copper Mixative’, ‘Silver Mixative’, ‘Blending Solution’
Embellishments:	Tim Holtz safety pin; Hug Snug Seam Binding ‘Ivory’; PTI rustic button twine; Liquid Pearls ‘Platinum Pearl’; Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE); Bazzill chipboard ‘Keys’
Tools:	Heat gun; EK Success edge punch ‘Graceful Heart’; Zig 2-way glue pen; 3M foam tape