Delight In Nature

Hi everyone, today I would like to share the results of my first play time with some stamps that arrived yesterday from Tracy Evans’ new release, along with some of her older stamps. The design of this card CASE’s a Tracy YouTube video from earlier in the week … I was literally just finishing watching it on my iPad when my new stash dropped through the letterbox!! 

I absolutely loved this video, though as usual I did make a few changes - I don’t have Tracy’s latest background “Art” stamp so I used an older one, I changed the colour scheme as I was inspired by this month’s Stamping Sensations mood board, and I used a little Lavinia bird with the addition of a different sentiment and hearts. However the basic design concept is Tracy’s. 

I cut a piece of stamping card 6” x 4” and stamped my background and heat embossed in white. I then blended three colours of orange and green Distress Oxide over the panel, and gently wiped over with a baby wipe to re-whiten the stamping. This was a tip of Tracy’s using dampened kitchen roll … I think my baby wipe was slightly wetter, but this had the unintended but pleasing effect of slightly more smudging the background colours. 

I die cut a circle from a snippet of white stamping card and stamped it with the same background stamp which I had inked up randomly with my 3 DOX colours, then stamped the wheelbarrow and bird sitting on top. I distressed the edges with my Tim Holtz distressing tool and edged with black marker, then set aside. I stamped the focal flower onto a snippet of card, coloured with two shades of orange DOX, then added some white Posca dots and fussy cut out. I stamped the sentiment onto another snippet, cut out and edged. 

At the last minute I decided to add a couple of small hearts to the sentiment and a dangling heart in the bird’s beak, which I stamped with Summertime Versafine Clair. I assembled the card using another large snippet of black linen card stock for matting,  used some scrunched black cotton thread behind the flower, and added some grey shading to “ground” the flower, wheelbarrow and circle with a Zig pen. Finally I added some white Posca faux spatters … I never get on very well with actual spattering, and since I had an eye episode about 3 months ago I’m not supposed to do anything which involves sudden violent movement (the examples given included trampolining or bouncy castles!) , so I shouldn’t really be shaking my Posca pen in a frantic whiplash movement!! Nonetheless my faux spattering still went a bit haywire as my Pisca pen decided to deposit a couple of blots onto my work, and I had to do a little remedial work on the flower (sssh!!).

For once I actually remembered to take a photo of one of my snippets halfway through proceedings!

Stamps: Tracy Evans Boutique Designs TE13 Delight In Nature (flower), TE14 The Wonder of Nature (wheelbarrow), TE6 Branched Heart (dangling heart), TE10 Quirky Birds (small hearts); AALL & Create #909 Garden Notes, #533 Bring On the Sentiments; Lavinia Bird Collection;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks (Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimon); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Summertime); Posca pen (white).

Challenges I would like to enter:

Allsorts #781 - Anything Goes - Special 15th Birthday Challenge - TOP 15

Beautiful Blossoms #17 - Anything Floral Goes

Everybody Art #557 - Garden

Make My Monday #225 - Florals (3rd entry)

Papercraft #106 - Flower Power

Path of Positivity #121 - Anything Goes Positive (3rd entry) - TOP PICK

Snippets Playground #480 - Use Snippets

Stamping Sensations (May) - Anything Goes with optional Spring Mood Board - TOP 3

(I was inspired by the orange flowers and the orange/green colour scheme)

Triple B (May) - Birds, Butterflies and/or Blooms (2nd entry)

Word Art Wednesday #647/648 - Anything Goes (4th entry)

That’s all for today, but I hope to be back soon with some more makes with these new stamps by Tracy.

Hope you’re having a great weekend whatever you’re doing. Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,