Jane Austen Birthday Card

I made this Jane Austen card for the current Papertrey Ink Birthday Card challenge using one of my favorite stamp/die sets, Simply Jane.

I decided to try some mixed media techniques with this card. For example, I heat embossed the stamped portion of the oval frame with white embossing powder, then painted over everything with black gesso. Once the gesso dried, I used my finger to add a light wax to the embossing, which gave the swirls a subtle bronze effect. I really like how it turned out. I also used black gesso and blue acrylic paint to the two women.

For the background panel, I gave it an aged effect by inking the paper and edges in brown and splattering some walnut ink all over.

The paper strip with the sentiment is white cardstock with black gesso and some on top. I ripped the top and bottom edges to give extra texture and interest, and inked the exposed white paper with light brown ink so it matched the background panel. The sentiment stamp is heat embossed in white. Finally, I added two adhesive pearls to decorate the sentiment.