A Little Orange Happiness and Cardstock Conversation

Inspired by this card, I made this.

Obviously, mine went off in a VERY clean-and-simple direction.

The colors are rich and warm and wonderful. I know just who will receive this card, too. So yay for sending cards during a pandemic.

The watercolor effect of the stamping was achieved with Memento and StampinUp markers, and a water mister. The background inks were scribbled onto a transparency and spritzed with the mister. Then, I laid the handmade paper (Hero Arts) directly on the transparency until it had soaked up all the wet ink.

Both techniques are so incredibly easy!

Now, for cardstock conversation, as requested by reader Kim T, who asked about the white cardstock I use.

Kim's concern is paper cracking when folded. Any really heavy cardstock will crack when folded, unless you score the fold first. It takes a lot longer to explain how to score and fold cardstock than it does to fold it. But here goes.

Supplies
score board, bone folder, Teflon bone folder, cardstock

I use a score board (mine's Martha Stewart, but they all work the same) and a bone folder. Position the cardstock on the board and run the bone folder over the score several times.

Fold the card so the dent of the score is on the OUTSIDE of the card. This still seems counter-intuitive to me, even after twenty years of scoring and folding. But the dent stays outside the card.

Once the card is folded, I switch to a Teflon bone folder (so it won't make the paper shiny) and burnish the fold, especially if I'm folding against the grain of the paper. Paper really doesn't want to fold against the grain.

But then, how many of us want to do anything against OUR own grain? I understand how the paper feels.

Teflon folders wear down VERY quickly if you use them with a score board, and as they are about four times as expensive as the regular bone folders (which aren't bone at all, but plastic), I try to use them only to burnish the fold.

My husband watched how fluidly and quickly I scored, folded, and burnished a card once and said, "Wow. You do that a lot, don't you?" Yup.

As for my cardstock recommendations, here they are:

1) Papertrey Stampers Select white: This is my go-to cardstock. It's heavy with a bit of tooth (not completely smooth).

2) Neenah Solar White in 110# and 80#: When I want to go crazy layering white on white, I use Neenah, which comes in a heavy weight for the base and light weight for layering. The colors match, obviously. It's truly astonishing how many different whites there are!

3) Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock: This is great for wet techniques and is white enough to work well with either the Papertrey or Neenah card bases. It has a textured side and a smooth side, both of which work great. The textured side is clearly machine-made.

4) Hero Arts Handmade Watercolor Paper: Softer than the Tim Holtz, the Hero Arts has the great organic texture of handmade paper...truly lovely. It's also very white, unlike most handmade paper, and takes water well.

5) Gina K Deluxe white: This is the only coated cardstock I use, and it's super heavy. No matter how much Copic marker ink you put down, it won't bleed through, so it's ideal for one-layer cards with coloring. Its super-smooth surface allows for very easy blending of alcohol markers.

I get hives if any of my stock of these five papers starts to run low.

Thanks for the question, Kim!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love during the pandemic and always,
Susan