Paper Crafters Against Racism – IG hop

Hi crafty friends! I’m back with another blog post that is near to my heart. I’m happy to participate and support the goal of the Paper Crafters Unite Against Racism Instagram hop. My talented, caring, amazing IG friend Chay, @hcbc2_handcrafted, has been organizing this hop for over a year now (I believe), and it is a great chance to show solidarity, support one another, and use our superpower – cardmaking – in a small way towards change. The goal of this hop is to continue to raise awareness about anti-racism; to stand with our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) friends and family, and to keep encouraging everyone to start the necessary conversations. We are all one humanity and should find a way to #showup for equity and equality, in a way that makes sense for YOU. Silence, Inaction, and Passivity are detrimental to justice. Racism absolutely exists and affects real people – our friends, our family, our neighbors, our community members. Let’s band together to stop all forms of hate. The more people we have fighting for change and equity, the better our chances of becoming one humanity. What are some simple ways that you can show up for others? See more info and the full IG line up below.

I loved creating this simple, but meaningful card for this important IG hop. *Affiliate links used whenever possible at no cost to you. Thanks for using my links to purchase and for your support!

Easel card base. I created my easel by following the basic directions from Jennifer McGuire’s easel card tutorial. I wanted to create a square easel card so I cut a piece of heavyweight, white cardstock to 5.5 x 11 inches. I scored it at 5.5 inches. Then, I scored one half of the card base at the middle at 2.5 inches.

After creating my easel base, I stamped several sentiments from Hero Arts, Power to the People and Hero Arts, Empowerment over the card base. I did this by temporarily taping the stamp set still on the plastic backing to the lid of my MISTI. I replaced a few of the sentiments from Power to the People with sentiments from Empowerment, inked it up with detail, black ink, and stamped everything at once. It is much easier and faster using this method. It creates an instant, DIY pattern paper. I stamped on the front of the card and also on the inside. I made a mistake on the inside and accidentally stamped too far up, so I cut a piece of rainbow pattern paper to cover my happy accident (you can see a peek of this below). Problem solved and so cute!

Alcohol ink. I am new to alcohol ink, but have really enjoyed playing with them. Lately, I have been obsessed with alcohol ink rainbows. I used the following colors on a piece of Ranger yupo paper: Flamingo, Sunset Orange, Peach Bellini, Dandelion, Limeade, Turquoise, Glacier, and Amethyst. I applied the color in rows and dried each row before moving on to the next row. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol to move the ink around. After my panel was dry, I die cut a heart from Honeybee Stamps. I glued the bottom half of the heart to the front of my card base and made sure that the card easily popped up into the easel shape.

Focal image and sentiment. I decided to white heat emboss Hero Arts, American Women on black cardstock. After heat embossing, I fussy cut the image. I adhered the image on top of the alcohol ink heart with foam tape for dimension. On the inside of the card, I adhered a sentiment with thin foam tape to act as my stopper. The sentiment is from the Hero Arts, Empowerment stamp set and again, I white heat embossed it on black cardstock. And that’s all there was to it! I hope to send this to a friend to remind her that she is beautiful and to never let anyone make her feel less than enough.

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Thank you so much to Chay for organizing us and providing so much information for IG hop participants to share and consider! What are some simple ways to show up, what are some ally actions you’ve incorporated into your life?

Maybe you are – starting conversations when you witness racist experiences, or hear a racist comment? Changing your own perception? Talking to your children and raising them to be accepting and inclusive, and to avoid using descriptive nicknames? Taking the time to learn how to pronounce someone’s name correctly? What about gifting someone diverse-character books at a kid’s birthday, during the holidays, or just because? Donating, attending protests, signing petitions, making calls, holding politicians accountable? Asking for more diversity in products? Supporting Black-owned companies or products? There are so many other examples, these are just a few. I encourage you to do what feels right to you, but please do something.

Full lineup: