Crafty Lessons Learned with the Happy Hour Collection

Hello crafters! Joan Bardee here. The fantastic Happy Hour Collection consists of 2 cocktail glasses and other unique items to use with or without the glasses. It’s clever and my favorite of everything Spellbinders has released so far this year.

Today I’m sharing a brayered background, an explosion of color blocking, and a cheeky Halloween card. None of these contain new ideas, but I learned a few things along the way that I will share with you. I hope you enjoy the cards as much as I enjoyed making them.

CHRISTMAS COCKTAIL WITH A BRAYERED BACKGROUND

A holiday card with a martini glass and a brayered background are both out of my comfort zone. But when I was finished, I was doing a happy dance!!

• Die cut the martini glass from Olive Martinis set in Fog cardstock twice and glue it together with Bearly Arts Liquid Glue.
• Die cut the “liquid” for the martini from Olive Martinis in Poppy Field cardstock.
• Die cut the small holiday pieces from Christmas Cocktails in white, Poppy Field, Onyx, and green cardstocks.
• Glue a small white pompom onto Santa’s hat, using a glue dot.
• Die cut the belt buckle and bow from Christmas Cocktails from Glitter Metallic cardstock. This cardstock is part of the Gold Assorted Treasured Cardstock set. The “glitter” on this paper is very fine and the paper die cuts easily. It produces a much more elegant look that the heavier glitter paper I’ve tried before. (You want this paper.)
• Put everything together as shown to make a holiday cocktail suggesting Santa in a Glass. Love that!

Then came my dilemma – the background. I tried the cocktail on a plain white card and a variety of other backgrounds, but nothing clicked. Decided to see if I could brayer a background – something I haven’t tried in ages.

• Ink the brayer with Candied Apple Distress Oxide ink, rolling off most the ink on printer paper, and then lightly add the ink to the top right edge of a panel of white cardstock. Add a bit of red to the bottom left.
• Clean off the brayer and add Crushed Olive Distress Oxide ink, being careful not to create mud (red + green are complementary colors and don’t blend well.) Brayer towards the bottom left.
• Clean off brayer and roll on just a touch of Scattered Straw Distress Oxide ink near the green.
• Lightly spatter some black ink onto the panel. Let dry.
• Hot foil and die cut a sentiment from the Cheers Sentiment Press & Plate with black foil onto white cardstock.
• Assemble the card as shown and adda few gold gems.

Lessons Learned: Play around with the ink and brayer onto printer or scratch paper before using cardstock. I found using just a touch of a shade of green with a yellow undertone (Crushed Olive) ink worked much better than any other shade of green. And adding the Scattered Straw finished it off nicely, resulting in a bit of a golden glow. I also found that you need to leave a good amount of white space under the focal point – the martini glass.

COLOR BLOCKING

Color blocking – designing with pieces of solid color, usually bright and bold, to create eye-catching images – is a match made in heaven with dies. I’ve done it before, but never took on such a bold card with 2 sets (inside and outside the glass) of color blocking.

Since the scene inside the glass contains small pieces of solid cardstock, I wanted the contrast of larger pieces for the background and circles to evoke the sun and green strips on the bottom to suggest land. There’s no right or wrong – just play around until it looks right.

No step-by-step here because it’s all die-cutting and putting together as shown. Supplies were cardstock linked below, dies from Sunset in a Glass, circle dies, glue, and foam tape.

Lessons Learned: Color blocking is pretty much a choice of colors, shapes, and placement. Pick those colors carefully. This is the second version I made of this card. The first had darker colors, including a black outline for the glass. It was a little dull. I figured out that I needed to use colors that worked with the concept of a sunset. The color palette needed to match the image. I

Also, move the pieces around and try different sizes until you are happy. I used a few different-sized circle dies before settling on the large ones – in part because bold was better here and in part because the bottom edge of the glass curved in a way that was similar to the largest circle die.

CHEEKY SCENE

I find creating scenes intimidating and rarely make them. But when I saw the hand in Boos! Cocktails, I thought it would be fun to create a scene – a scary hand holding small arms trying to escape and the bats flying away. It’s odd but fun. I know a little boy who will get a kick out of this.

• Die cut the bats in Onyx.
• Die cut the two small hands in Saffron and the large hand in Berry Pink from the Meadow Collection.
• Stamp the sentiments from Gnome Drive Sentiments Clear Stamps in Versafine Onyx onto a white panel and set aside.
• Adhere all the die cuts as shown with foam dots and trim.
• Add spots with a black alcohol marker.
• Make a bow with Black Cord # 10 and adhere with a glue dot (because this skeleton is a fashionista!)
• Add Red Color Essential Gems to light up the bats’ eyes.
• Fun Scale: 10/10

• Lessons Learned: Make sure that the hand and some of the bats bleed off the edge of the cardstock to create a sense of movement. I wanted this card to be fun and not scary, so the hand is bright pink and sports a bow. They lighten up the mood for my little recipient.

I stuck with the classic triangle layout to create this scene – the sentiments, bats and hand form a triangle. Pick one element first (I chose the sentiments) and then work from there.

Thank you, Spellbinders, and thank you for reading along. I hope this inspires you!

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other Supplies

Cardstock, pompom, glue dots; Crushed Olive Distress Oxide ink