Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 23

It's another week of The Altered Playing Card Challenge, we are working on week 23 this time. Only about 4 more weeks to the finale and to our finished complete decks! I hope you've stuck with me this entire time, we are almost done!

Look at our Deck so far:

It's so cool to see them all together!!!

If you have missed any of the previous week's here are the links

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
Week 18
Week 19
Week 20
Week 21
Week 22

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and the Pinterest Board link

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This week I'm focusing on using "masks" to create a really cool background. I want the backgrounds to stand out so I'm not using many images over them.

I started out with two playing cards and used acrylic paint for my first step. For my two cards I used a gold and a light blue, set aside to dry (your going to want a lighter color for your background, we will be adding a darker shade over it)

For this next step, there are a few ways to make a mask to use, Tim Holtz has mask sheets, you can find at your local craft store) that have adhesive backs, you can cut these sheets to any shape

You can also use a die and card stock

In this case, I'm using both so you can see how they both work

I decided to go with this new Tim Holtz thinlits die set for one of my masks

Just simply use both card stock and the mask sheets with your die

I cut the black card stock using Tim's new die first

For my second mask I used Tim's framework die and his mask sheets

and I ended up with these two masks to use

For this first card I used Tim's clear mask sheets and adhered the diamonds and the outline here and there onto my card

Once I had the mask where I wanted it I used adirondack color in a shade of brown and a distress tool to go over my card and mask pieces

Once you have the desired amount of darker ink over your card, simply peel your mask off and reveal your design

For card two, do the same thing, I used a piece of removable adhesive to keep my mask in place, I chose a shade of blue that was slightly darker than my background paint

Here is how my two backgrounds came out (I also edged them with ink)

Next, I placed my masks back onto my cards because I realized I wanted to stamp over them as well (you can do this step without removing your mask first, which is recommended)

For the blue card, I chose a color and stamped my stamp over the mask, as you can see I put the mask back in the exact same place and used a piece of painters tape to hold it

Since I only had one mask, I stamped and I then moved the mask and stamped again with a different stamp this time

Now my card looks like this, the mask acts as a barrier so the space stays untouched

Same step for the second card, then peel off the mask pieces

(this photo was taken prior to peeling the mask pieces off)

Next I simply stamped my main image in black right on top of this background, I also added a few words to my card

Here is what my card looks like when finished

For the next (blue) card, I used my heat gun to dry the card really well before stamping my main image. I want to heat emboss this image so I wanted to make sure my card was really dry.

I stamped my image and heat embossed in black

Next I used several different colors of acrylic paint to color bits of her

and lastly I added a word, here is my finished card

and here are the cards together

I really love how the use of masks make my background stand out. Love it! I hope you have fun playing with masking this week too. 

Only 4 more weeks to go!! WOW!

CHEERS!