Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 25

Thanks so much for coming by, I owe some of you an explanation from my absence last week. I know that most of you (on Facebook) already know that I was absent last week because I fell and ended up with a concussion. Those of you who are not members of the Facebook page had no idea and I apologize about that. I didn't come online at all last week due to the fall. I took a pretty scary spill down my basement's unfinished stairs and hit the back of my head pretty good. Had a baseball sized bump and went to the ER. Thankfully everything was ok and I didn't have any internal bleeding but I had a concussion and pretty serious bruise and lump. I'm much better now and feel more up to crafting and blogging. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes last week!!!

We are now onto week 25 of this challenge

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
Week 23
Week 24

and our Facebook group

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link

Pinterest Board

I figured that we would do something simple and not too tough this week
I have always loved the ideas and styles of Wendy Vecchi and this week our backgrounds are going to be inspired by her technique from last years CHA .... If you want to watch the video on how this is done click HERE she demos how to do this technique and with what supplies. 

You need some glossy paper for this technique and I used Ranger's glossy, I just cut a few pieces that were slightly larger than my playing cards

You will also need some different colors of Archival re-inkers and a bottle of alcohol or Ranger's blending solution

All you are going to do is add a few drops of the re-inkers onto your craft matt. For this one I also used Gold Mixative by Ranger and Tim Holtz

then add some alcohol or the blending solution

take a popsicle stick or paint stick and run it through the alcohol and the re-ink colors slightly

The simply run your glossy card stock through the colors

You can add more blending solution to your paper so that the colors run together even more if you want them to, just let the colors swirl together one your page, it's very pretty once it's dry

(I used the only colors I had in re-inkers LOL, I don't have many)

For the second card, I tried a different color combo and actually used silver fixative and black this time

So this one came out so cool and amazing and then I ruined it!! I had to toss it and start again and my second one didn't come out as good but I used it anyway

I then glued my pieces of colored paper onto my playing cards

and trimmed to size

First Card

second card

Playing with the first card I added some stenciling onto my background with a star stencil that I made myself
Using Archival Ink and a distress tool, I went to town
(I didn't have a start stencil that I liked, so I made my own with card stock and an exact knife lol, you should really try this one day, it's fun)

I really love how the archival ink goes onto this glossy background, it's almost transparent

Next I created some whimsy houses with printed card stock and  Janet Klein's new stamp Stitched Houses

I also used my gel pen to draw some "twinkles" around all my stars

Then I adhered my houses
I used permanent markers like Sharpie's and Bics
to draw stems and flowers

I used another permanent black marker by Faber Castell to draw a border around my card

and lastly I added my sentiment with Kate Crane's new stamp
Peace and Love
Here is my final card

For my second card, I used a stencil and archival green ink to create a background

I taped off the parts I didn't want on my card and used a distress tool to stencil

the green in the butterfly and grass really brings out the green in my background

Here I go using washi tape again LOL
I am going to use this thin washi tape around my edges

I got all carried away and forgot to take photos of the steps... so sorry
I added my washi tape around the edges and used a sentiment from a fortune cookie fortune
The Gnome guy is a stamp from Kira Nichols called 4 Dwarfy Gnomes - there are 4 of them but I only used one here
I just colored him with copic markers and cut him out
Here is my finished card

and here are my two cards together

This week was really fun, I bet it would be more fun with more re-inker colors, I need to get some more of them. 
Have fun and enjoy this week!!!
See you all next week, only a few more to go!!