Chalks Away!

OK, so I was a bit panicked when Nat gave us her challenge for this week's Daring Cardmakers.  You're probably well aware by now that I don't really do stamping and the style of cards the Chalkboard or Blackboard trend is about is really a stamping technique.

".... this week I've challenged the design team and you to...
Create a card that pays homage to the chalkboard look
Ideally I would love it if you could try the heat embossing technique, but if you don't have the supplies there are plenty of fonts and printables out there that you could use to replicate the look."

Nat explains all about it over on the DCM BLOG so please pop over and have a look at the info and all the fab cards the team have made this week
I don't have any suitable stamps and I don't have any white ink or white embossing powder to stay true to the technique so I had a hunt around on the net and found a wonderful free printable background which cheered me no end!
Next I spent a good deal of time playing about with fonts and dingbats - tbh I should have just stopped messing about and got on with ticking off other things from my to-do list!
In the end, I made a couple of cards - I'll save one of them for another post but here's what was actually the second card I made

I used:

Papers and die cut border Crate Papers "Lillian"

Ribbons, Lace, Wired Flowers all from stash - mostly from Creative Treasures

Coiled paper roses made from paper scraps

Blackboard:

Chalkboard Printable Background from HERE

With the background loaded into Paint Shop Pro I added the sentiment on to the centre using the colour set to white

The flowery border is actually made from a dingbat font called "Menina Graciosa Ornaments Two" and is made up of masses of flower patterns - you just type a letter on your keyboard to get the corresponding flower or leaf design

I just "doodled" with the font-flowers to make the frame for the words. 

That done, I took it a step further and added a few bits of chalky-colours using the flood fill tool, still working with PSP.

Next step was to resize and print off the finished design and make the card

I hope you like it and will feel inspired to have a try at making your own version - or go the "proper" route and do it the stamping way!

Thanks for visiting