Simple, stunning silhouettes

If I want to make a clean and simple card that looks impressive, one of my favorite designs is to use nature silhouettes in black over a colored background. Over the years I've posted quite a few of these cards with all kinds of backgrounds, from watercolor (evening sky, sunset) and Color Burst powders to alcohol inks and even pieces of different colored card stock. Well, I hope you're not tired of them, because I have a few more to share today.

Supplies:
Stamps: Organic Set #2, Organic Set #4 (Rubbernecker)
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Island Indigo card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Color Fuse Set #9 (Rubbernecker), Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Rectangle masking stencils (Taylored Expressions), blending brush (Picket Fence Studios), Mermaid Mix sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), clear droplets (Pretty Pink Posh), Moonshine Confetti (Hero Arts), shimmer spray made with Shimmer Liquid Watercolor (Taylored Expressions), foam tape (3M), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute)

For the background on these silhouette cards, I used rectangle masking stencils to cover the white border on the card fronts and then blended a few different shades of blue ink in the opening, starting with the lightest shade on top and moving to the darkest on the bottom. (My blending at the bottom of the cards is definitely a little splotchy, but I don't think that detracts from the cards too much.)

Once the backgrounds were done, I stamped the silhouette images and sentiments using black ink. I placed the images so that they extended past the edges of the blended panel just a little; that technique probably has an official art or design term, but I just really like the way it looks. To create a bit of sparkle on the cards I added droplets of shimmer spray (see photo below), and then I adhered the panels to card bases. The final touch was a different type of embellishment on each card

For the last couple of cards I used a similar background technique but switched the silhouettes to die cuts instead of stamps.

Supplies:
Paper: Very Vanilla, thick Very Vanilla, Basic Black card stock (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Color Fuse set #9 (Rubbernecker)
Accessories: Rectangle masking stencils (Taylored Expressions), Wildflowers Thinlits dies (Sizzix), blender brush (Picket Fence Studios), Sparkle Silk (Fun Stampers Journey), foam tape (3M), Art Glitter Glue (3M)

It's hard to tell in the photo, but I used vanilla card stock for these cards, which has a slightly softer feel than white. I also used a different size masking stencil (both sizes come in the package) to make a smaller blended panel. And my blending is much smoother and less blotchy on these cards!

I used Sparkle Silk to add some shimmer on the panels and then adhered the black die-cut silhouettes. Again, I let them extend past the blended panel. I used foam tape to attach the panels to vanilla card bases and keep the clean look.

Thanks for stopping by!