I love using Liquid Appliqué to make fluffy. puffy white effects, like the vanilla ice cream on this card! •all the heart eyes• By the by, I’ve never had an affogato, but I think I should soon. Cuz I think I would kinda love it. OK, probably love it a latté! •chinkle•

After my card was finished, I squeezed a round-ish shape where I thought a scoop of ice cream would look good and “puffed” it. If you’ve never used Liquid Appliqué before, here’s a tip (or two):

TIP:

If you heat Liquid Appliqué right away, while it’s still wet, it puffs up “irregularly” and uneven, which, depending on the effect you’re going for, looks great, and what I did on this design. Don’t get too close with your heat gun; stay just close enough to watch it puff (you don’t want to scorch it) and then continue heating it gently, so it gets heated all the way thru, for maximum puff.
If you don’t heat it thoroughly, it will kinda deflate/collapse down because the gooey stuff on the inside is still wet. You can rectify that by heating it back up (gently) again. It will rise/puff back up and just continue gently heating it until it no longer deflates/collapses and holds its form.
If you wait overnight to heat Liquid Appliqué, it will have dried thoroughly and you will end up with a “smooth and consistent” puff—think freshly fallen snow, before any creature has had a chance to make tracks across it.

Inside caption: “Better latté than never” (from A Breve Note)

I actually used my Clean Color Real Brush Markers to lay down color where I wanted it, and then went over some of them lightly with a water brush to blend the colors out as I wanted. It’s kind of an earthy color scheme, but I really like it! (The specific colors I used are listed down below in the supplies) You can intensify the pale colors by going over them and building up the color but you really only need a light touch with the mid-darker colors; those are pretty intense on their own and a little goes a loooong way when you begin to blend them out with a waterbrush. Just sayin’…

The coffee themed stamp sets in this release make me so giddy—I’m caffeine fiend! The whole release is live now—you can see this latest collection here: Essentials by Ellen February 2019 Release. There’s a ton of creative “fuel” in the way of samples and ideas!

I’ll be sharing more samples in the coming days so I hope you’ll come back and see what else I’ve had fun making with this release!

Do you have a particular favorite?

SUPPLIES (affiliate links used wherever possible):