Draw inspiration from nature and use the Northern Lights Technique to make a beautiful background for your next handmade card!

Nature is such a great place to draw inspiration from!
Have you ever seen the Northern Lights?
They can have so many different colors and can look different depending on when and where you see them.
In this video, I’m going to show you how to do the Northern Lights Technique to make beautiful backgrounds for your cards.
To come up with the colors I used on this card, I started by going to Google, searching “Northern Lights” and then clicking on “Image”. Then I scrolled through all of the gorgeous Northern Lights photos that people have taken and chose an image that I liked and thought I could duplicate with my inks.
For an A2 size card, start with a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of white card stock.
To add ink colors, you can use sponge daubers, sponges, blending brushes, or any other type of blending tool that you have.
I recommend you really experiment and don’t get discouraged if you don’t like your first few tries.
Enjoy the learning process!
Start with your lightest color of ink and work towards the darker colors. Rub in circles, go back and forth in a line, or “dab” – you’ll get a different look depending on how you apply your ink.
To finish off the Northern Lights look, use a dark ink pad color like Night of Navy and sponge around the edges of your card.
Stamp silhouette images on the bottom in black ink to highlight the Northern Lights sky.
You could stamp trees, mountains, animals, whatever you’d like. Or even tear some black card stock to create your own mountains along the bottom edge.
Finally, add some sparkling stars with Wink of Stella.
You can mount this on any color card base but I really like how the white frames it.
I decided to leave my cards as-is but you could also add a greeting or extra embellishments.
So what do you think? Are you ready to give the Northern Lights Technique a try?
Let me know in the comments if you’re going to try it or if you already have and can share some extra tips with us.
Happy Stamping!
Jessica
Supplies Used:


Get more card making tips & tricks!
Subscribe to get more card making ideas from Jessica by email.















Thanks for showing how to make Northern Lights. Yes, I am going to try it. L love your cards.
You’re welcome. So glad you are going to try it!
I like this card a lot! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it and hope you’ll try the technique.
Love it, going to try it today. Just finished several folding cards, little hectic at first, but got the hang of it. Enjoy all
the tutorials
and techniques. Would like to order supplies,how do I do that.
Hi Shirley, I’m so happy to hear you are making cards and enjoying trying new techniques. You can order supplies from my shopping website at http://shopinkitupwithjessica.com. Thanks for asking!
I am from southwest lower Michigan and have never seen the Northern Lights. . Love your technique and nature’s inspiration. I adore S.U ‘s tree dies.
LOVE this technique. I tried it after watching your video, and it was the best. I could not get enough of it, so I just kept making cards!!!
Mary, YAY! That makes me so happy!
I love this card and will definatelytry it. Thanks Jessica.
Thank you Kaye, I’m so glad you’ll try it.
Yes Jessica, I am going to have a play. I love what we see in the sky.
I live on a hill in Christchurch NZ and witness some very beautiful skies.
Jenny, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
That is really beautiful! Really fun for right now where we are experiencing a rare opportunity in Alabama to see the Northern lights for a couple of nights. Thanks for the inspiration.
You’re welcome, I hope you try this technique based on the Northern lights you’re seeing!
Thank you for showing the technique.
Love that card, Jessica and can’t wait to make one. I used to live in Iowa before moving to southeast Texas. Sometimes we could see the Northern lights. It’s quite a show of color! Thanks for sharing!