I have been looking for ways to make my little cards “pop” more. I find layering different textures helps this…an embossed card, an inked background, some cute critters popped up with fun foam, etc.

I saw the cloud backgrounds on other sites and I wanted to try making my own. I’m incredibly cheap so I really mean make my own stencil. I drew up a square-ish cloud shape in Adobe Illustrator and exported it to use with my Silhouette. I cut it out of some basic cardstock and voilà — my own cloud stencil. Now I’m not telling you all this so you will be incredibly jealous. The stencil is yours to download further down this post.

Here is the card I made with my awesome new cloud stencil. (You can purchase the card on Etsy.)

You can find a tutorial for the basic technique to make the clouds here on Jennifer McGuire’s blog. She has a link to purchase a stencil and another tip to make your own with cloud boarder dies.

You can download the PNG to make your own stencil here! (Unfortunately I can’t make an .svg file but you can open the PNG with your Silhouette Studio software and go to town.)

Here are some of the products I used for my card:

Ranger Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool

Ranger Tim Holtz Distress  Ink Pad – Salty Ocean

Ranger Tim Holtz Distress  Ink Pad – Mowed Lawn

Lawn Fawn Stamps –Party Animal

Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts –  Party Animal

Sizzix Stephanie Barnard  Framelits Dies –  Rectangles Dotted

Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers – Pale Hues

Spectrum Noir  Alcohol Markers –  Browns

Spectrum Noir  Alcohol Markers –  Essentials

Tsukineko StazOn Solvent Ink Pad – Jet Black

Tombow Mono  Adhesive Dots  Dispenser

Darice –  Foamies Foam Sheet –  White