Happy St. Patrick's Day!

For today's post, I thought I would show a card I made for a grungeboard card swap. I tried to kill two birds with one stone by using grungeboard for the challenge and incorporating St. Patrick's Day items to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

To make the card, I ran some smooth grungeboard through an Accu-cut machine to cut out a shamrock. I then placed the shamrock on some paper towels and sprayed it with Lettuce Colorwash spray and a watered-down version of the Bottle Colorwash spray. I dried the shamrock with a heatgun and then sprayed it with some Irredescent Gold Glimmer Mist to give it a gold shine. I then stamped an Impression Obsession pattern onto the shamrock with green ink to add interest. I finished the shamrock by edging it with green ink and a Colorbox stylus tool. To complete the card, I layered a couple of Dream Street Papers, added a ribbon, and stamped "Happy St. Patrick's Day" (also by IO).

I was unsure about using the grungeboard to punch out a shape and attach it to a card. It seemed like such a waste to not make use of some of grungeboard's characteristics such as its ability to bend around corners. Wouldn't a piece of chipboard work just as well on my card? Plus, chipboard is a lot cheaper than grungeboard!

Here are a few of the things I liked about the grungeboard:

1. It took all of my sprays really well. Spraying it over and over with different colors didn't warp the board at all.
2. It has a cool texture to it (even the smooth version) that looks different than chipboard.
3. It feels great! My finished shamrock felt like suede, and I really liked the tactile element on my card.
4. Normally, it is really hard to edge rounded shapes with ink and a stylus tool. However, I was able to bend my grungeboard so that I could easily ink all the nooks and crannies.

If you are looking for more info on grungeboard, Tim Holtz has a cool video on his site.

I hope everyone has a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!!!