Zero Fucks: with Brianna French

Hi! Hello!  Welcome!  I am rounding off April with the stamp set 'Zero Fucks'.  When I was younger I had the mouth of a woman in labor. When my first lil gremlin was born I cut the fowl language down to a minimum.  Then when my second was born and became old enough to fight constantly with the oldest my language censorship went right out the window!  I love this stamp set because it is so freeing!  

For this card I decided to make a somewhat unconventional way to say "Thank you" to someone.  Because the sentiment is unconventional, I wanted the size of the card be unconventional as well.  I decided to do a mini card.  It is only 3"x4 1/4".  It is so cute!

Because this card is small I wanted to keep it as simple as possible while still appealing.  I decided to do the 'inside-out window' effect.  I used a 2 1/2" circle die and figured out exactly where I wanted it to be on the front of the card.  You could also find a tape roll around the size you need and trace and cut it out using a pair of sharp scissors.  When I need to do this, I will poke my scissors through the center of the circle and then using that hole cut the inside of the circle out.  

Now that I had my window on the front of my card, I chose a bright orange piece of card stock and lined the inside of my card so you can see the bright orange through the circle window.  I lightly traced the circle onto the inside of the card and used low tack double stick tape to hold the card open while I stenciled a mandala pattern where my circle was on the inside.  I made sure to erase most of the pencil marks before ink blending so as to not trap the pencil marks under the ink.  I wanted the pattern to stand out but not too much, so I used a bright orange ink and my blending brush to create the mandala.

I love black and white with bright colors, so I chose black card stock for the sentiment strip.  I prepped it with my anti-static tool and used watermark ink and white embossing powder to give the sentiment some texture.  For some reason the white embossing powder didn't work as well as it should have.  What I did to fix this blunder is simply use my white gel pen and go over the words to touch them up to my liking.  Then I used foam double stick tape and with the card closed I centered the sentiment inside the circle window and adhered to the inside of the card.

For the finishing touches, I cut two thin strips of the bright orange card stock and the black card stock and glued them to the far left of the card.  Then I added some coordinating sequin and pony beads that I put on silicone baking mats and baked in the oven at 250 degrees fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. (If you try this at home, keep in mind that every oven is different and depending on the oven and your elevation, the temperature and time may vary)

Thank you so much for reading!  If you want this supremely freeing stamp set just visit Ink Road Stamps and use promo code BriannaF10 to get 10% off of your order!