Mother's Day Card Duo by May Guest Designer Anika Mercier

Today we have our first post from our May Guest Designer, Anika Mercier from Color and Ink! We fell in love with Anika's creations on instagram and we are so thrilled to have her as a guest designer this month! We know her amazing creations will inspire you! Keep reading to find out more about her today and to check out her first project below!

Hi Everyone! My name is Anika and I live in the Washington DC area with my wonderful husband and super adorable cat, Pixel. I'm a dabbler in all things creative and have worked in several different mediums including screen printing, jewelry making, glass blowing, and photography to name a few. I started making cards in the early 2000s but then life got busy and I didn't have time to continue. In 2017 I started making cards again and I've been having a blast ever since! I'd love to connect with you so please visit me at my blog colorandink.com or find me on Instagram at colorandinkdesigns.  

Hi Everyone,

I am so excited and very honored to be guest designing for Newton's Nook Designs this month. Thank you so much, Jennifer and Samantha, for this wonderful opportunity! I'm looking forward to sharing a new project with all of you each Monday in May. I hope you all enjoy the cards I will be sharing and they inspire you to make some of your own! 

For my first guest designer blog post, I thought it would be fun to share not one but two Mother's Day cards featuring the new and super pretty Mother's Day stamp set.

Card One

For my first card, I wanted to create a soft and elegant Mother's Day card. 

Background

When I saw the Mother's Day stamp set I knew I wanted to pair it with the beautiful Bold Blooms Stencil. So, I started by blending a light layer of Milled Lavender Distress Oxide ink over my entire background panel. Next, I taped the stencil down and applied a layer of Mother of Pearl Nuvo Mousse over the ink blended background. When I pulled back the stencil I was so excited to see how lovely this combination of products turned out! It's always so nice when ideas turn out how you envisioned. 

Sentiment 

To continue the soft/ feminine theme I stamped and gold heat embossed the Mother's Day stamp onto a piece of vellum. Then I flipped the vellum over (backside up) and colored the flowers and greenery using Copic markers. 

Finishing Touches

After wrapping the vellum around the card panel I added a few gold sequins around the sentiment which also allowed me to add dabs of glue to the vellum to help hold it in place. 

Card Two

In contrast to my first card, I wanted this Mother's Day card to be bold and dramatic.  

Design Panel

I started by stamping several images from the Peony Blooms stamp set onto the design panel and then apply silver embossing powder. When two images overlapped I carefully removed the embossing powered with a small paintbrush before heat setting. This method of embossing allows you to skip masking your images. 

After all the flowers and leaves were heat set I colored them using Polychromos Colour Pencils. I used two shades of pink, two shades of green, one red, and the white color pencil. I started by adding a light layer of white at the base of each petal and then added pink/red over it extending the color to the top of the petals. I did this process twice for each flower and leaf to build up the color slowing. 

Sentiment 

For this card, I wanted to use the Mother's Day stamp but I didn't want the floral images since I felt the style was a little too different from the flowers on the design panel. So, I masked the flowers by placing washi tape over them, applying VersaMark ink over the entire stamp, and then removing the washi tape before stamping onto my cardstock. 

However, after stamping and heat embossing the sentiment I felt it needed a few images surrounding it so I stamped a portion of the main flower cluster from the Peony Blooms set onto the sentiment panel and then heat embossed and colored the images. 

Finishing Touches

I wanted to add a bit more sparkle to this card so I splattered Silver Hero Arts Glimmer Metallic Ink over the design panel. Once dry I trimmed the right side of the design panel down and added a thin line of silver glitter paper to the right edge. Lastly, I popped up the sentiment by stacking the three die cut panels together. 

I hope you enjoyed both of these cards and they give you some ideas for creating your own Mother's Day cards. We'd love to see your creations using the Mother's Day stamp set so make sure to tag #newtonsnookdesigns on Instagram! 

Thanks for stopping by the Newton's Nook Blog!

 - Anika

I'd love to connect with you! Please come find me at my blog colorandink.com or follow me on Instagram at colorandinkdesigns