Heart Song Inspirations Monday with a Technique Spotlight

Supplies

{Stamps: Heart Song Designs Kite, SU Warm Words set (happiness), Ink: SU Cool Caribbean, Paper: Crumb Cake cardstock from SU, Patterned Paper from Cosmo Cricket, Ribbon: Offray, Black pen: Marvy LePen, Adhesives:Terrifically Tacky Tape Provo Craft to hold ribbon in place, Xyron sticker maker for kite string, Dimensional adhesive (unknown) to pop kite up, Trimmer: Fiskars}

This week for our DT projects at the Heart Song Inspirations blog , we will each be sharing some of our favorite cardmaking techniques. Some of my personal faves include distressing, paper piecing, paper piercing, brayer sky, and faux stitching. But, the technique I'm going to show you today is one that I think eludes a lot of people, even though it is totally easy. I'm going to show you how to create a fluffy clouded and a whispy clouded sky background. I used the fluffy cloud background and Heart Song Kite image on the above card. I also used the fluffy cloud technique on this Easter card posted back in March.
For the fluffy clouded background, I use the following items:

Blue Ink
Three 2-5/8" Scallop Circle punched cardstock pieces (stapled together)
A small piece of sponge (I use 1/8 of a full-size Stampin Up sponge)
White Cardstock
Something to protect my work surface (in this case an old desk calendar from 1999)

It's a bit difficult for me to explain, so I'll just let my pictures do the talking. But basically what I do is use the stapled pieces of scallop cardstock as a mask to ink around on my cardstock. I turn it wherever I think a cloud needs to be and pounce my inked sponge on the edges.
I got this technique from a tutorial I found on YouTube, but for the life of me I can't find the one I used. I did find another couple here  and here that are very similar.

For the whispy clouds, it is a lot simpler lol. I basically just take my sponge, dab it in the ink, and pounce it on the paper in random places keeping the parts that are supposed to be clouds white.

I hope you enjoyed my picture tutorial today, and I do recognize that I am not really all that gifted at these things. So, please visit the links within my post above to see the videos of the more in depth tutorials out there.

I also have some rather sad news. I've elected not to move forward with the new term on the Heart Song Design Team. I'm going to miss it sorely. Leah is a great artist and friend. I just feel like I need to take a time out and work on things that I want to work on. When I am on a DT for a specific line, I feel an obligation to use that product as much as possible in my work, and that limits me a little. However, I do adore Leah, and I've loved being on her DT. So I just may return after a couple of terms :)