Whale Shaker Card by July Guest Designer Rachel Alvarado

Today we are introducing our Guest Designer for July, Rachel Alvarado! We fell in love with her gorgeous coloring and beautiful cards on instagram and can't wait to share what she creates this month using our products! Rachel will be back each Monday for the month of July with a new project! Keep reading to find out more about her today and to check out her first project below.

Hi, I’m Rachel and I first discovered the world of card making back in 2015 when I decided to make the invitations to my sister-in-law’s baby shower. I love utilizing lots of color into my designs and enjoy all styles of card making. When I’m not crafting, I am a busy homeschooling mother of three. 

Hello crafty friends!  It's Rachel here and I'm thrilled to be guest designing for Newton's Nook Designs this month! I have a fun shaker card to share with you today using some adorable images from the Tides of Love Stamp Set.

I made the main portion of my card one layer using a masking technique along with some Gina K. Designs Masking Magic Paper. If you look at the photo below, you can see how I stamped the front images first, masked them, and then stamped the images (on top of the first image) that I wanted to appear behind them. I used the Hills & Grass Stencil as a template to create a mask for my ocean floor.  All of my images were stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink onto a sheet of Neenah Solar White 110lb Card Stock and colored with Copic Markers (colors listed at the bottom of this post).

I knew that I wanted to use the Frames & Flags Die Set to create my shaker window, so I used the window die as a reference when stamping my images.  Once I had all of my images stamped, I than masked any image that I had not yet masked and then blended my water background with Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, and Wilted Violet Distress Oxide Inks.  Once blended, I lightly splattered this area with diluted opaque white acrylic paint as well as some diluted Wilted Violet Distress Ink.  Next, I removed the mask from the ocean floor and used the Hills & Grass Stencil to blend some Antique Linen Distress Oxide Ink for my ocean floor.  I then removed all of my masking pieces and set my piece aside to dry before coloring my images.

While it was drying, I then die cut 6 of my scalloped frames from white card stock using the two largest dies that come with the Frames & Flags Die Set.  I adhered 5 of them together with liquid adhesive to create a clean cut dimensional frame to hold my shaker embellishments.  Before adding my frame, I colored my images and trimmed down my underwater piece to slightly larger than the window opening.  I stamped my sentiment with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and adhered this piece to an A2 sized top-folding base piece (cut to 4.25" x 11" and scored on the long side at 5.5") and then glued my scalloped frame layer on top of it so that my underwater scene peeked through the window opening.

I added my embellishments (3mm clear sequins) and then adhered my last frame piece to which I had glued a piece of clear acetate behind.

Copic Colors Used: (Whale: BG70, BG72, BG75, BG78; Crab: R05, R25, R39; Greens: YG01, YG07, YG17; Teals: G000, BG11, BG23, BG18; Oranges: YR02, YR07, YR18; Yellows: Y13, Y15, V12; Pinks: RV02, RV55, RV66)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today!

-Rachel