There is always a first time....

Hello stampers and welcome to the blog. This is Astrid here to share a card.

Yes, you read that right, this is Astrid and yes, I know it is not my usual style at all.

I have always been a huge admire of people that can create beautiful CAS cards, something I had never done before, but there is always a first right?

Now to be honest, this card is totally cased on a card by Chrissie Stokes, which I saw in the September 2013 issue of the Craft Stamper magazine, so if you want you can read instructions there, but of course I used Artistic Stamper stamps.
I folded a piece of white card to the size I wanted and then masked off the bottom part of it with Post-its like Chrissie describes.
Next I stamped the Calligraphic Mat 12 in Versamark ink and heat embossed with Wow Clear Matt Dull regular powder .
With some Ink Duster brushes I brushed first Chipped Sapphire and then Gathered Twigs Distress Inks around the edges of my card, getting lighter toward the top and right hand side. I wanted the edges to be still a bit darker so also went round it once more with Adirondack Dye Ink in Espresso. 

I then inked up the Speckle background with the Espresso and added a few speckles around the outside.

Covering my piece with some kitchen paper I now ironed off the embossing powder to leave just the white stamping and then inked up the Rose from the Botanical 3 Plate in a combination of Library Green and Plum Archival Ink, stamped it in place and smudged out the colours a bit with some Cut-n-Dry Pen nibs.

The final step was to take away the mask and stamp my sentiment from the Tim Holtz Way With Words set in Jet Black Archival ink.

So, when was the last time you did something for the very first time? Well, I did when I made this card and I loved doing it, so it won't be the last.

Thank you for dropping by today, hope you like my card and that you will try something new soon!
Thanks for visiting and see you next time!