I love to add texture to my cards, and the embossing paste from Altenew is perfect for doing just that. It is a lovely lightweight paste that doesn’t add to much bulk to your cards and is easy to colour or use as is for its brilliant white colour. Today, I’m using the paste with distress oxides to create a textured unisex birthday card, but you can easily swap and change the colours up depending on the recipient or the occasion. The simple design of the card lends it to be the perfect unisex card and with the bold sentiment, it adds a modern twist. But you can think more out of the box and try this with a whole range of stencils for any occasion, though I’m keeping it simple for today to show you the technique.
PRODUCED AS PART OF MY DESIGN-TEAM WORK FOR Bumblberry Papercrafts - SEE END OF POST FOR MORE DETAILS
creating the textured background
Create a mask using Inkadinkadoo masking paper, and trimming a sheet down to the size of the card panel which measures at 5.25″ by 4. Next, die cut a rectangle from the middle of the masking sheet and using the negative frame position onto the card to create a border to the textured background without adding another layer, framing the background.
Using washi tape on the back of the card panel made out of Gina K Soft stone cardstock, adhere Altenew Grid stencil down. For the embossing paste, use a palette to apply small dabs of the paste onto a glass craft mat three times in order to create three colours for an Ombre look.
To colour the paste, smooshed Tumbled glass distress oxide next to the paste, along with Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Saphhire next to the other dabs of paste. To colour the paste, use a palette knife to work the paste into the ink. The more ink you use, the more intense in colour the paste will become. Apply each colour from light to dark to create the ombre look.
You may find, you want to go back between the colours to blend and transition the colours with one another. When the background is completely filled, remove the stencil straight away and wash with water as well as the spatulas.
Leave the background was left to dry and once dry, add more interest using the Altenew 36 pan watercolour set to add some black paint splatter and again leave this to dry.


assembling the card


For the sentiment, cut the word happy using the Altenew Fine Alphabet dies out of black card and black fun foam. The card die cuts were adhered to the fun foam die cuts using Gina K Connect glue to give dimension to the sentiment. Again, use Gina K connect glue to adhere these directly to the background – you need a strong adhesive on this textured surface.
A stamped sentiment from the Altenew Birthday Builder stamp set was added to the front and finished off with a few black Nuvo drops from Tonic Studios. For a little shine, apply some Glossy accents to the Happy sentiment.
don't forget to check out the
Bumbleberry Papercrafts
blog where you’ll find more inpspiration
textured unisex birthday card
Supplies
Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you at these shops: Altenew (ALT), Scrapbook.com (SB), and Craft Stash UK/US (CS UK/US).
All other shops are not affiliated links: Bumbleberry Papercrafts (BP) and WOW! UK/US (WOW UK/US)
![]() Chipped Saphire Distress Oxide – Ranger Ink Shop at: BP | SB | CS | ![]() Grid Stencil – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB | ![]() Fine alphabet die – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP |
![]() Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide – Ranger Ink Shop at: BP | SB | CS | ![]() Gina K Designs – Connect Glue Shop at: BP | ![]() Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110lb Cardstock Shop at: BP |
![]() Birthday Builder – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB | ![]() Soft Stone Heavy Weight Cardstock – Gina K Designs Shop at: BP | ![]() Embossing Paste – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB |
![]() Broken Chevron Stencil – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB | ![]() Watercolour 36 Pan Set – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB | ![]() Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide – Ranger Ink Shop at: BP | SB | CS |
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Design team work:
DISCLOSURE
This post was produced as part of my design team work for Bumbleberry Papercrafts have not been paid to make this post, but I am given supplies from Bumbleberry Papercrafts to use. However, I create projects with creative control and produce projects I am proud of and with products that I love. The information provided is based on my own personal experience – I am not an expert.