A Little Button Happy

Hi everyone!

Today I did a card for Monday Mania over at Club Anya. It's Sheng's turn this week and she decided on buttons! It also qualifies for Pixie Dust Studio's Cute as a Button challenge (yah yah yah) AND WT276 (Heat Embossing) at SCS.

I created an Easel Card, but incorporated the button theme. I have seen these Easel cards popping up all around blogs, so I had to give it a try - but I gave mine a little twist and made it a shape Easel Card. I used my Cricut and Sure Cuts A Lot to create the base. Can you see the buttons?

I'm really happy with the results. First I did a faux leather look on some of the card stock. It came out better than I expected. I added a close up below so you can see the faux leather up close.

It's actually pretty easy. I copied down the steps in case anyone was interested in reproducing it.

1. Start with a brown piece of card stock

2. Emboss it with the Mosaic Embossing folder

3. Use Tim Holtz Distressing in any of the browns and distress it randomly over the entire piece. Darker in some spots and lighter in others.

4. Rub the entire surface with a Versamark clear embossing ink pad. Do not press too hard as you just want to cover the raised portions and not the lower parts inbetween.

5. Cover it with clear embossing powder tapping excess off. Again look to make sure the embossing powder is on the raised pieces only.

6. Heat with a heat gun

Viola - Instant faux leather :)

As I mentioned earlier, I stuck with the challenge to use buttons, I hope you can see the pretty flower buttons I used :) I also paper pieced Anya's outfit with a bandanna pattern and blue jean patterned designer paper.

I have to say this is one of the best cards I have ever made from pre-planning. So many times I get a thought in my head to make a card, but when I sit down to do it - it doesn't work out. This card came out so much better than I pictured it in my head when planning, and that usually never happens lol.

I hope you guys like it. Thanks so much for your visit!