A Galaxy of Friendship

Good Afternoon, I'm sharing a fun and simple galaxy background card for White Rose Crafts, today featuring Distress Oxide inks, which are one of my favorite mediums to work with!

I started by heat embossing this beautiful "Friends are like Stars; you can't always see them, but they are always there." sentiment--a single stamp by Dovecraft called Stars, in Ranger Super Fine Gold embossing powder on an A2 panel of white cardstock. That turned out to be a mistake, but more on that later. 

Next I smooshed some Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Twisted Citron, Squeezed Lemonade, Salty Ocean, & Carved Pumpkin Distress Oxide Inks, in various areas of the panel, drying them with a heat tool. 

Next I used a Ranger Mini Blending tool to cover the panel with Black Soot Distress Oxide ink, letting some of the color shine through.

To add to the randomness of the background, I used my Distress Sprayer to add droplets of water, letting them sit for about 30 seconds or so, before blotting with a dry paper towel to remove color. To really bring the galaxy look together, I pulled out some white paint from my stash, thinned it with water & used a fan brush to splatter white "stars" all over the colored panel. It was here that I realized the gold embossed sentiment was getting completely lost in the background, so I decided to try to emboss over it with Ranger Super Fine White embossing powder. You can't see it well in the photo...but that did not work. The two powders blended together into a splotchy, muddy mess--no matter how many coats of white I added. So, yeah--I don't recommend trying to layer different colors of embossing powder on top of each other. Learn from my mistake! lol

Rather than admit defeat and scrap the card, I decided to pull out a scrap of white cardstock and heat emboss the sentiment in gold. Then I trimmed it down to 2x2.75 inches, mounting it on a piece of black cardstock, 1/8 inch larger than the sentiment panel with Woodware 1mm foam mounting tape. 

Next I trimmed my background panel to 4x5.25 inches and then cut an A2 panel of Black Ore Petallics shimmer cardstock and adhered it to the front of a white A2, top folding card base. I used the same 1mm foam mounting tape to pop up my background panel in the center of the shimmery black base, and then adhered the sentiment panel, covering up the embossing on the background panel. I added a few Dovecraft Berry Blush Adhesive Glitter Dots to the galaxy background for a touch of sparkle. As a final touch, I put a wash of Wink of Stella Clear shimmer pen (sold out) over the sentiment panel.

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I hope you enjoyed my photo tutorial and were inspired to create your own Galaxy of Friendship! I love all of the Distress products and I'm really looking forward to trying the Sprays from the new release--I think they'll be great for adding some interest and additional color to galaxy backgrounds! Did you know that White Rose Crafts has the first 12 Oxide Sprays available for preorder, right now? If you're as excited about them as I am, hurry over and place your order!

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Happy Crafting!