Cards for Mays beginners card class

I've been playing with the Paper Artsy Infusions and preparing the cards for the attendees to make in this months beginners card class at Scrapbook  Magic on Monday 14th May.

They will be using the infusions to create backgrounds, colour texture paste and to paint with so lots of fun things to challenge them with.  Plenty of opportunity to get very inky fingers but also to see how many ways this medium can be used.

For all three cards I started covering a piece of cardstock slightly smaller than my base card with a page from an old book I'd picked up from a charity shop while on holiday last year.  I then added a layer of white gesso over the top as I knew I would be adding water or gel medium to the infusions so this would give it a sound base for adding the mixed media products.

For the lion card I used a Tim Holtz stencil from the mini stencil collection Set 4 and texture paste to give some dimension to the background. Olive Tree Infusions was then sprinkled onto this area and spritzed with water and I allowed it to run down the card.  I removed some of the colour using a baby wipe in areas I felt were too dark.  Using Golden Sands infusions onto some spare cardstock I created the pieces of card to go at the top and the bottom of the card which were cut out using a die from the First Editions Build A Scenes die set.  Using a stamp from the Graphic 45 Safari Adventure 3 stamp set I stamped out the lion twice and then fussy cut him out, inked him with Antique Linen distress ink and decoupaged him onto the card.  I also used a couple of the other stamps in this set across the top and a sentiment from Stampers Anonymous Simple Sayings CMS155.  All the edges were inked with black archival ink.

For the second card I sprinkled some infusions onto my craft mat, added some water and then made some splatters with a paint brush.  I put some texture paste onto my craft mat and sprinkled with Raspberry infusions and lightly mixed this into the paste and then used Paper Artsy stencil PS059 to create the blooms and Olive Tree for the stems.  Along the bottom of the card I stamped the grass from Paper Artsy JOFY11 set and some of the words also from this set using Peat Moss archival ink.  To add some sparkle I coloured over the blooms using a clear Wink of Stella pen and after I had taken this photo I added white dots with a Jane Davenport paint over pen.  Before the class I think I will repeat this card and add some Glamour Dust to the paste and see if this will give it even more sparkle.

For my final card I have used Paper Artsy JOFY30 stamp set.  I used the honeycomb stamp to create a frame around the card and then stamped the two bee stamps.  I mixed Golden Sands infusions with gel medium to create a few splatters on the background and then coloured in the bee's and honeycomb.  This gave a lovely pearlised effect.  I matted this one onto some black cardstock and then finished off with one of the sentiments from the set.  Again after taking the photo I went back and added some gel medium to the wings and sprinkled with Glamour Dust.