Do you remember cloisonné? I fell in love with it as a very little girl! My grandparents would give me little trinkets of cloisonné: ring boxes, pendants, small trays. I loved the vivid colors and the golden lines that kept those colors in.
I found several different ways to produce a cloisonné effect as I started to design my challenge card. I’ll go through them briefly – but please forgive this long post. I got a bit carried away!
My first card uses an alcohol ink technique on vellum. It is a very simple technique and requires Stampin’ Blends and isopropyl alcohol over 90%. (It is important to know that the 74% alcohol won’t produce the same effects.).
I scribbled on a 4-1/4” x 5-1/2” piece of vellum using Polished Pink and Misty Moonlight Stampin’ Blends. With a spritzer filled with 95% isopropyl alcohol, I spritzed the vellum and blew through a straw to move the ink around and create the pattern. I used the Heat Tool to dry the ink – gently. I use washi tape to hold the vellum in place to reduce the warping in all of these techniques.
Once the design was dry, I stamped the circular floral motif from Stampin’ Up! Encircled in Friendship and heat embossed it, using gold embossing powder from the Metallics Embossing Powder collection.
I framed the medallion with a circle frame which is also from the Encircled in Friendship bundle. The sentiment comes from Stampin’ Up! Amazing Thanks die set. A gold mat (cut from Stampin’ Up! Gold Foil Sheets) provides a border for this medallion and it is then mounted on a Polished Pink cardstock.
The second card starts with the same floral medallion from the Encircled in Beauty dies . This time, however, I started with the gold embossing and then colored it on the reverse side of the vellum.
I used Misty Moonlight, Whisper White Ink, and Granny Apple Green to color the disk. I used a Blender Pen to apply the Whisper White Ink. As I did with the first design, I framed it with the beautiful circular die from the Encircled in Beauty die set. Then I completed the design using the Thanks die cut from gold foil and mounted it on a Basic White mat embossed with the Stampin’ Up! Macrame 3D embossing folder to add additional texture.
My third Cloisonne trial returned to the alcohol ink painting technique. For this card, I used Coastal Cabana, Misty Moonlight, and Granny Apple Green Stampin Blends scribbled on a piece of Vellum Cardstock, cut at 3-3/4” x 5”.
I looked for a floral design that had open space to allow me to remove some of the alcohol ink. I found that the larger floral image from Friendly Hello would work perfectly! I stamped the image of the 2 flowers with Versamark Ink and embossed them with gold embossing powder.
Next, I used a cotton swab soaked in 99% alcohol to remove the ink carefully from the inside the flower petals. This is almost a reverse cloisonne design. I mounted the panel on a mat cut from Coastal Cabana cardstock with a Thanks die cut.
But my last attempt is a very different technique from the first three.
I chose the full panel die from the Stampin’ Up! Detailed Dahlias die set. Using the Stampin’ Up! Gold Foil, I cut the panel out and then created a stencil from Basic White Thick Cardstock to guide the coloring.
My plan: use a gold panel to outline the color beneath. The stencil provides guidance about where to apply the color.
Once the coloring was complete, I mounted the gold foil panel on the colored image. Again, a Gold Foil Mat accented the design on the Polished Pink cardstock base.
I think all of them are fun designs and they were definitely fun to do. Most of all, it was fun to play with that beautiful cloisonné look and revisit that memory. I wonder where all of those trinkets went…
Although I have thought about cloisonne designs as a great subject of a blog post, I was inspired to bring the thought to the top of the list by a couple of challenges. The first of those challenges was the CAS Mix-Up: Faux Cloisonne. This challenge offered a lot of guidance and inspiration for my 4 projects.
Color Hues: The Color Challenge for February was Pink and Navy. This is a frequent color scheme in cloisonne design, so it suited these projects perfectly!.
And the last challenge to offer inspiration – especially for the 4th card – was the I Love to Share:NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff). I had purchased the Detailed Dahlia die set because I love the full panel, intricate dies. And the Stampin’ Up! Encircled in Friendship bundle was an early purchase with the 2021-2022 Annual Catalog. But both have been sitting on the shelf unused. As it turned out, it was the perfect way to create the gold foil overlay for one card and frame the Cloisonne medallions on two of the others.
Thanks so much for taking a look at today’s cards! Please forgive my excessively long post – but I really did get carried away with finding my favorite Faux Cloisonne technique! Hopefully, my ramblings will inspire you to give one or more of these techniques a try.
Please leave me a comment, especially if you have any questions about any one of these four techniques.
Very pretty cards! I love this look but have never tried it! Thank you for joining us at Color Hues!
Thanks so much, Kristie – and thanks so much for the Color Hues challenge! I have always loved the Navy and Hot Pink combination, so this challenge was a natural!
Beautiful cards Susan!! The colors are amazing, love your designs! 🙂
Thanks so much, Amy! The techniques were fun – but I got a bit carried away! Thanks so much for visiting my blog!
Lovely cards! I’ve never tried the cloisonne technique, but enjoyed reading about your process. The resulting card is stunning! Thanks for joining us at Color Hues!
Thank you so much for checking out the full blog entry, Karen! I’m so sorry that it was as lengthy as it was…but I was in love with the technique and the colors. I remember my mother having a beautiful “shocking pink” suit for Easter when I was very young. She had this gorgeous navy silk scarf draped over it – very Jackie Kennedy! The color challenge reminded me of that Easter outfit – and how beautiful she looked! Thanks so much for moderating these challenges – there is a lot of work involved and I appreciate it.
Wow. And then wow. And also WOW! I love these cards SOOO much! Especially that blue one! Absolutely gorgeous!! 🙂
What a fabulous group of cards,Susan. I enjoyed reading about each one and I feel like as I went through the post the cards just kept getting better and better. I love the final one that you made for Color Hues in mind. Loved the photos so we could enjoy the process too. Thanks for playing along with us!
Thank you so much for looking in on my blog post! And thank you so much for moderating the challenge! This was absolutely an evolution. You challenged us to work with the Faux Cloisonne technique – and it just touch a nerve for me. I’ve always loved Cloisonne. Every technique that I tried pushed me to try something more – just to see if I could get closer to the real thing! Thank you so much!
I loved your long post and explanation of how your beautiful designs evolved, Susan. You really embraced the cloisonne technique and each one of your finished cards is gorgeous. I was especially taken by the reverse cloisonne one; great idea! Thank you so much for inspiring everyone at NBUS with these designs! Hugs, Darnell
Hi, Darnell – and thank you! It was a VERY long post and I’m sorry for that. But I was just captured with the technique! Thank you so much for your very kind words!
Beautiful cards, and each one so different. Thank you for playing along at CAS Mix Up!
Thanks so much, Linda – and thank you so much for moderating these challenges!
Wow Susan I am so glad I inspired you to try so many different ways to achieve the Faux Cloisonné technique, all 4 cards are beautiful. Thanks for the step by step instructions and for joining us at CAS Mix Up this month!
Oh, Susan – thank you so much for the Faux Cloisonne challenge! Clearly you hit a creative nerve for me as I love the real Cloisonne technique and couldn’t stop looking for a better and better technique!
All of these are such lovely cards. I have never seen the cloisonne technique before, thank you for demonstrating. Thank you so much for sharing with us at the Color Hues!
Oh, Tracey – it was absolutely my pleasure! I did get a bit carried away…but the color challenge inspired that. I love the Navy and Pink combination and I remember when it was VERY popular in the fashion world…I don’t want to say which go-around I remember it, though, as I would be giving away one of my only remaining secrets!!
Stunning cards!!! Your cards gave me great incentive to try the methods you used in making these cards. I don’t think your post was too long….it was filled to the brim with great info!!
Kathy – thank you so very much! I really did have fun exploring a way to get to the best faux cloisonne possible! Please give it a try as I think you will like the results! I especially loved that I stuck to the Navy and Pink challenge as well as the faux cloisonne since this is a frequent color combination. It just felt right. I wonder if these two challenge groups could possibly have known!
Thank you so much for stopping by to take a look!
Love your cards…just beautiful! I still have some of my cloisonné jewelry! Thanks for bringing back those memories.
Hi, Carol – it was so pretty, wasn’t it? The challenge was a fun one and I’ll be messing around with some of these techniques again in future posts! – Susan