Tour de Craft Guest Designer - George Panayiotou!

Today's guest designer comes to my blog by way of Cyprus! George Panayiotou is one of my favorite stampers. His designs are always so crisp and perfect. I'm thrilled to share his gorgeous cards on my blog today!

Hi Everyone! I am really happy and honored to be joining Libby’s celebration for the Tour de France! Today is Stage 6 for the Tour de France, and I am sharing two ‘Hello’ cards I made for the Tour. The cards are similar, just different color combinations and different bicycles!

I started by die cutting the large stitched rectangle from Wplus9 Love Mom Layers Die out of some smooth white cardstock. Then I die cut the Hero Arts + Sizzix bikes out of some masking paper and adhered it on the white stitched panel.

Using my favorite combinations of Distress Inks and a mini blending tool, I created a soft background around the bike. The trick here is to start on the mask and blend the color out so you end up with a soft background. (for the blue card I used Peacock Feathers and Mowed Lawn, and for the orange card I used Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade). Then I used the Distress Inks along with some water and flicked it on the paper to create a splatted effect.

After letting it dry, I used my stamp positioner and stamped the bikes (after removing the masks) with Versafine Onyx Ink, and heat embossed with clear superfine embossing powder. (Give some time for the Distress Inks to dry before you do the heat embossing otherwise you will end up with clear embossing powder all over the panel – ask me how I know!).

Next, I sliced off a thin strip from the bike panel and replaced it with colored cardstock on which I heat embossed the bike, so when everything is adhered on the card, it gives a continuous image. Or, use a plain cardstock without the heat embossing – that works great too!).

I finished the cards by adhering the bike panels on to a light gray card base and then added the Altenew Label Love greeting, which I stamped with Versafine Onyx Ink and heat embossed in clear embossing powder. I cut the greeting and adhered on the card!!!

Thanks again for sharing these fabulous cards, George! There are so many little details that I didn't even notice when I first looked. The embossing on the little strip of paper to match up with the bike? WOW! George is just amazing with his attention to detail. :-)

Thanks for stopping by!