Happy Birthday, Man!

Hey there! Hope everyone had a great weekend. I have a manly birthday card here. I find that those are a challenge since most cards I find are not very manly! I love the way this came out. I dont' have a tutorial, but I'll explain how I achieved the ombre look. ;)

I knew I wanted a cool birthday card for a guy, so I chose the 4.25x5.75 Flames embossing folder from Crafter's Companion. What I did was use ink and a sponge to create the ombre flames. 

I cut out my white panel to emboss (4"x5-1/4") and I put that into the flame embossing folder and ran that through my Cuttlebug. I then took 3 ink pads and 3 sponges. I used Versamagic Thatched Straw (yellow), Memento Tangelo (orange), and Memento Lady Bug (red). 

What I did was I took the actual Thatched Straw ink pad since it's small, and lighter in color, and actually rubbed it over the embossed flame image. Just do that until it's the color you'd like. To build up the color and make a nice ombre look, I used the yellow about 2/3 of the way down the flame panel. This way, it builds up behind where you're putting your orange. 

Next, I took my Tangelo ink pad and rubbed my sponge onto that to pick up the ink. Then, I took my sponge with Tangelo and gently rubbed it over the paper/embossed image towards the bottom 2/3. You want to be darker down there since that's where it will fade into the red. Then as you use the ink you've picked up on the sponge, you can move your way up towards the yellow, using a gentle circular rubbing motion. It creates a soft transition from one color the next. 

Do the same with the Lady Bug ink pad with a different sponge and work your way up into the Tangelo color. Now you can go back and adjust wherever you need to add or blend your colors until it looks like you want it.

I used a few images from the Camden Town set, Male 2. Nothing goes better with flames than a racing flag and some tire marks! I kept it really simple using just black and white, no coloring, so the flame background stands out. 

Try out this technique today!