Bright and beautiful stars

Featuring Stamping' Up Bright and Beautiful stamp set

Hello and welcome. This is my first card-making blog. Today I'm sharing how I made my bright and beautiful star cards. A full list of materials and tools appears at the end of this post.

Stamp and heat emboss

• Wipe cardstock with anti-static powder. 
• Stamp stars in different sizes using clear Versamark ink. I used the Stampin’ Up Bright and Beautiful wood mounted rubber stamp set. The stamp is discontinued but I bought mine second-hand.
• Apply embossing powder and shake off any excess. 
• Heat set the embossing powder. I like the way the gold turned out best. Not so happy with the red, it was hard to tell when it was set so perhaps I didn’t set it properly. 

Die cut and glue

• Die cut the stamped stars. I don’t have the discontinued coordinating dies for the stamp set so I spent a lot of time researching different sets of star nesting dies. I compared angles, point styles and the sizes of each star before choosing Hero Arts 5-point stars infinity dies. It has great matches for the two larger star stamps. The smallest star stamp is between two of the die sizes and I thought I would hand cut them. But in the end I mostly used the slightly larger die. The next size down takes off the outer circles in the design but it still works too.
• Die cut two or three extra stars to match every star to be used.

• To add dimension I mostly used three extra layers of a cheaper, thinner card and glued them behind the stamped stars. To save time I did some with two layers of Knights 280gsm card. I tried one without layers, just using foam tape. It was much quicker but I didn’t like it as much.
• I pop everything into my old bookbinding press while the glue dries.

Backgrounds

• Add subtle piercing to background using Altenew dotted starburst debossing cover die. You can see it in the photo if you look closely. This die is a US size and my card bases were an Australian size so there is a plain border above and below the background piece on the cards.
• Add splatters with Altenew Ink Sprays in antique gold or antique silver.  I used gold spray for the gold and red stars and silver spray for the silver and turquoise stars.

Assembly

• Fold and score card using a bone folder. 
• Glue background to card. Blu-stick is fine for this.
• Glue different size stars together and glue to card.
• Glue gold or silver embellishment to centre of star. Gina K Connect glue is strong and easy to control for fine application.​

Supplies

Materials
Stampin’ Up Bright and Beautiful wood mounted rubber stamp set
Hero Arts 5-point stars infinity die set
Altenew dotted starburst debossing cover die
Altenew Ink Sprays in antique gold or antique silver
Cardstock: I used Knight smooth white 280gsm
Anti-static powder
​Versamark clear ink
Embossing powder
Pinkfresh Studios metallic gold and silver pearls
Gina K Connect glue
Blu stick glue
Tools
Die-cutting machine
Heat gun
​Bone folder

I hope you found this helpful. Please leave a comment below to tell me what you think.
​Have a great day!