Beautiful Flower

Hi everyone, I’m currently on a bit of a roll with my new AALL & Create stamps .. I absolutely love them! I’ve been watching quite a few of Tracy Evans’ Youtube “snippets” videos (short 15 minute compilations of ideas and techniques) over the past couple of weeks, and whilst I haven’t actually been making any of the snippets, I have been inspired by various ideas for how to combine stamps, colour schemes and/or techniques and have used one or two here. Here is my first card with my favourite (I think) stamp from my new purchases … the helenium in set #904 Flower Journey. 

This card was nothing like what I imagined my first card with this stamp would be, but I had a large snippet of brayering mop up out on my desk, and before I knew it I started stamping and it all went from there!

My background was made previously by brayering Distress Oxide inks randomly onto a large snippet of stamping card then spritzing with water and dabbing with textured kitchen roll. I stamped my helenium flower in black, then decided I didn’t want to colour it so I tried a technique I saw in a snippet video which was to “bleach out” the colour from the flower head using a water brush. This was only partially successful as the background wasn’t newly stamped, but it was ok for me to continue. I coloured the flower petals with Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen, and the centre with a purple Sakura Stardust pen. I stamped some background circles with blue and violet DOX, then added some white harlequin stencilling on the left. I stamped the “Quill Ends” stamp onto a small snippet of lighter weight card (Neenah Solar White) as I find it easier for fussy cutting, then cut out the bird, nib and circle, shaded the circle with DOX, coloured the birdie flower with sparkly purple pen and attached. I stamped my sentiment words in blue onto a snippet of normal weight stamping card, cut out and attached then stamped a Lavinia bird sitting on the sentiment. Finally I rooted round for a couple of large snippets of suitable coloured card stock for matting, and added Glossy Accents to the pen nib.

Here is an angled pic to show (not very successfully) the sparkly flower and glossy pen nib.

Stamps: AALL & Create #904 Flower Journey, #908 Quill Ends, #531 Textured Florals; Lavinia Bird Collection;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks (Blueprint Sketch, Wilted Violet); Versafine Clair (Nocturne); Versafine (Majestic Blue); Brilliance pigment ink (Moonlight White); Sakura Stardust pen (purple); Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen (clear); Ranger Glossy Accents;

Tools: Darkroom Door  - Diamonds stencil.

Challenges I would like to enter:

As You Like It - Favourite Flower (and why)

 (Right now it has to be the helenium because I just love this stamp 😀)

Crafting Happiness #142 - Flowers  (2nd entry)

Crazy Is Our Fame, Stencils Are Our Game (May) - Use a Stencil plus option Flowers

Make My Monday #199 - Flowers  (2nd entry)

NBUS #50 - Use Your Never Before Used Schtuff

(mine is the focal helenium flower)

Path of Positivity #112 - Anything Goes Positive with option Nature

Sheepski #74 - Flower Power

Snippets Playground #453 - Use Snippets

Triple B (May) - Birds, Blooms and/or Butterflies

Try It On Tuesday - Use a Stencil - TOP 5

While I had my new stamps on the table I also decided to make a pair of ATC’s. I have seen various pictures online of creations that use the Quill Ends bird with flowers, and I thought these would work perfectly with the small scale of an ATC. 

I cut a piece of stamping card and created a smooshed background with Distress Oxide inks to give an aged parchment effect. I then cut it into 2 pieces each 3.25” x 2.25”, and stamped each one with Quill Ends in sepia. I stamped the flowers, birds and pen nibs onto separate card, coloured the flowers with watercolour brush markers and the pen nibs with DOX, then fussy cut, arranged onto the background and attached. I matted each piece onto standard ATC size shimmery brown card stock, then finished by decorating the pen nibs with my habitual Glossy Accents and adding some white Posca pen spatter.  

My main problem with this project was fussy cutting the flowers, as they had internal cutting as well as round the edges which I normally try to avoid. I normally fussy cut using fine scissors, and I found that my rarely used craft knife wouldn’t cut through the card cleanly so I ended up fussy cutting them without the stems and hand drawing a couple of stems afterwards which was definitely not ideal!! Any hints or tips on this would be warmly welcomed!!

Here is a closeup of one of them

Stamps: AALL & Create #904 Flower Journey, #908 Quill Ends;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks (Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap); Versafine (Sepia);  Watercolour brush markers (The Works); Posca pen (white); Ranger Glossy Accents.

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Gem of a Challenge #9 2023 - Anything Goes

ATC’s Around the World - Anything Goes

Crafty Catz #635 - Anything Goes with option Things With Wings (2nd entry) - TOP 3

Daring Cardmakers - A Bunch Of …

Love To Craft #74 - Anything Goes

Mix It Up #65 - Anything Goes

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies #2317 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Paper a la Mode (April) - Plant Some Ideas (not a card) (2nd entry) - TOP PICK

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Word Art Wednesday #593/594 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,