Greetings Earthling!

This week’s Visible Image Design Team theme, 'Teenage Birthday', was a challenge for me.  I don’t have any children nor do I know any personally so I went with my friends' descriptions of life with their teenagers.  This largely translated to “it’s like living with another species” so the Alien Invader stamp seemed the perfect choice.

My brief was to make a CAS card so I started with my background, as that forms a large part of a CAS design.  I knew that Distress Spritz sprays showed up on black so thought they’d make an excellent galaxy.  I sprayed Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers and then used a paintbrush to spatter Frozen Fog for the stars.

After stamping and clear heat-embossing the images, for some simple colouring, I smooshed Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed onto my glass craft mat and sprayed with water for easy watercolour.  I also used a little gold and silver mica spray for glittery accents.  Before die-cutting with the matching dies, I used a black marker to edge the designs as I didn’t want a white halo against my black background. (There's an excellent offer on the Alien Invader stamps and dies at the mo.)

The alien needed somewhere to stand so I made some space rock, as you do!  First, I smeared on some black opaque Texture Paste and added some embossing powder in a few places.  This powder is my own mix made up of equal parts silver, gold, bronze and platinum sparkle.  I like to have this on hand when a pure colour won’t quite fit my project.  It was the perfect colour for space rock!

With Texture Paste and embossing powder, you can leave it to dry and then heat emboss or do it whilst the paste is still wet.  I prefer the second method as the paste bubbles up whilst the powder is melting, resulting in fabulous texture. I used the same embossing powder for the sentiment.

As the rock had quite a lot of dimension, I used black foam tape behind the alien body and just added glue to his feet.

I matted the card on purple and then onto a white square to frame it before attaching to a black card blank.  It’s difficult to photograph but there is so much shimmer and sparkle on this - it’s quite dramatic!

Apparently, teenagers can be surprisingly pleasant at times too so the other sentiment, ‘You’re out of this world’ is ideal for the inside.