Cardmaking with pastels and embossing ink

I recently used Royal Artist Pastels to make fun background patterns for greeting cards. Below are just a few of the patterns I made. I'm Betsy Skagen of PaperCalliope and I already gave the birthday card above to someone special. 

 

Tutorial to make the pastel & embossing ink greeting card

Step One: Use a palette knife to lightly scrape across the surface of a dark-colored pastel and cover parts of a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of white cardstock with chalk dust. Repeat with a second dark color.

Step Two: Use your finger to work the chalk dust into the card. Be careful not to leave any white areas.

Step Three: Position your stencil over the card. I used a length of paper lace. Press an embossing pad over the stencil, making sure you get fairly heavy coverage. I got carried away making my card and forgot to take a picture of this stage, but here's a picture of another card, where I used the same process.

Step Four: While the embossing ink is still wet, scrape a light color pastel onto the card.

Step Five: Lightly blend the chalk into the card. The chalk will adhere to the embossing ink.

Step Six: Dry with a heat gun.

Step Seven: Spray your card with a fixative.

Step Eight: Press the You Matter stamp onto the top right corner of the card with embossing ink and cover with seafoam white embossing powder. Use the heat gun to activate the powder.

Step Nine: Print and cut out the desired Victorian Birthdays graphic. Ink the edges with one of the dark pastels you used.

Step Ten: Cut a piece of white handmade paper slightly bigger than your image and tear the edges. Adhere the image to the handmade paper and adhere both to your pastel cardstock.

Step Eleven: Make a 4 1/4" x 51/2" folded cardstock greeting card base. Set aside.

Step Twelve: Cut another piece of white handmade paper slightly larger than your greeting card base and tear the edges. Rub the side of the dark colored pastel along the edges. Adhere your pastel cardstock grouping to this paper.

Step Thirteen: Run a piece of coordinating ribbon across the bottom corner and adhere to the back of the white handmade paper. Glue a dried flower to the center of your ribbon.

Step Fourteen: Adhere the white handmade paper to the front of your greeting card.

Thank you for stopping by Altered Pages. Have a fabulous week! -Betsy

Great stuff you will need

Royal & Langnickel Artist Pastels
Victorian Birthdays
You Matter stamp
Embossing Ink
Seafoam white embossing powder
White cardstock
Stencil or lace
Handmade paper
Ribbon
Dried flower
Adhesive