Quoting Mary Oliver

I played in the craft room today, again. And I liked what I created. This bright card was not what I intended on creating but once I started stamping and painting it sort of created itself. All the stamps I used are Unity stamps and I only used a single die from Simon Says Stamp.

I started by stamping my flowers in MFT Hybrid Ink, in the color natural. I was watching some YouTubers take a similar ink from SSS and create faux no line water coloring with it and I thought maybe I'd get a similar look with this. The answer... sort of a no... but I wanted to make this card work so I did a few things to help it along.

My images are stamped on Strathmore Ready Cut Watercolor paper. I masked my images and blended the background with a combination of several blue distress inks, broken china, mermaid lagoon and peacock feathers. Then I used a hand-cut stencil to sort of sponge in some cloud like shapes in the background. While the masks were in place I stamped the ornate shape in the background with stormy sky distress ink. Then I started to watercolor the images.

I used my Zig clean color real brush markers because, let's face it, I need serious practice with these markers. I used Carmine Red No 022 and Wine Red No 024 for the flowers. Just putting a little bit on the petals and pulling the color out with my water brush. I used Deep Green No. 044 for the stems. Once I had the base color to all the flowers down, I used my Distress sprayer to spritz the entire panel and get some cool distressed droplets.

After that, I went in with the Carmine Red Zig marker and added the outlines back into the flowers using a real light pressure, barely touching the paper. I wanted even more depth so I did use a few Copic Markers C1 & C3 to help create a little bit of a shadow so the flowers popped off the panel a bit more. This is very subtle but does help.

I die cut the panel with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Shapes Bundle die for some additional interest.

I stamped the sentiment with my MISTI in Versafine Onyx Black ink and heat embossed it with Ranger Clear embossing powder. Then I sparkled it all up. I used the Wink of Stella on the flower petals that would be further back and in the shaded areas and I used the Spectrum Noir Clear Glitter Brush Pen on the areas where it would be out front. In real life, this card is so sparkly!

I added a few droplets from Pretty Pink Posh using my Ranger Multi Medium Matte. I lined the inside with a white panel because my card base is the black cardstock from MFT and that completed my card.

Sketched Mother's Day

I pulled out one of my new favorite stamp sets to make a Mother's Day card and sample for the 4H kids project for the week.

I used the sketched ranunculus set and heat embossed the flowers and leaves onto some Bristol Smooth Cardstock. I used Versafine onyx black ink and clear embossing powder. You still get the crisp black embossing but not the stray black powder bits black embossing powder can sometimes leave.

Then I used my Zig clean color real brush markers and added a little color to each image and pulling it out with my water brush. I only used one shade of red and one shade of green for each image. I really like the variation in color you get by pulling it out with the water. I set that aside to dry and then die cut a panel of bristol card stock with this rectangle die from the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Shapes set.

 I used the MFT hybrid ink in a neutral shade to stamp a Stampabilities medallion onto the corner of the panel. I wanted this to be very subtle. With a little distress ink and a blending pad I blended in some blue from the corner.

I heat embossed a sentiment from Avery Elle in Antique Gold Embossing Powder from Simon Says Stamp and then fussy cut the images out. These were simple shapes so they were easy and took no time at all. I used some foam tape to pop up the main flower and then adhered the remaining flowers flat using Tombo Mono Multi adhesive. Once the flowers were placed I added my leaves.

I mounted the panel on a piece of black cardstock and that finished my card.