Playing with colour!

Things are so grey outside right now!  Maybe I'm just more conscious of colours (and the lack thereof) because even with very variable weather on our vacation, the colours in the Caribbean are so saturated that a bit of rain or cloud doesn't have the impact it has here.  Since I've come home, I feel as if my colour perception has gone wonky.  Shouldn't there be more colours in my world?

Well, if I don't see the colours I want when I look out through my windows, there is nothing for me to do but add some colours inside my room.  What better way than to create a card?

I've liked some of the cards I've seen where people have stamped flowers on Crumb Cake and then coloured them in with a layer of white craft re-inker.  Why not try it on something a bit more saturated, I asked myself.  I liked the idea of using Chocolate Chip as my background to really make the colours "pop"--and so I did!

Step 1:  Cut a piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock with the Top Note die.

Step 2:  Using Versamark, stamp selected flowers on die cut.  (I used some of the flowers from My Secret
             Garden and some from Fabulous Florets.)

Step 3:  Sprinkle stamped flowers with white embossing powder and heat emboss.

Easy, right?  Even at this stage, the flowers just "pop" against the deep, warm brown of the Chocolate Chip. My next step was to colour in each of the flowers with some of the Whisper White Craft Re-Inker.  I used my Aqua Painter for that.  Because of the intensity of the Chocolate Chip, I wound up using a second coat in order to have the pale base on which to add the desired colours for my flowers.

Once this layer is dry, it's easy to paint on the colours of the flowers using a Stampin' Marker or a Blender Pen and ink from a Stamp Pad.  I also like to use those terrific Watercolor Wonder Crayons.  Anyway you choose to get the right colour into those flowers is fine.  You'll just be blown away by the terrific contrast you have against the background Chocolate Chip.

Even with just one layer of colour and no shading, you can see how nice this is going to look.  I like to let the layers dry in between and then just deepen the colour towards the centres.  After I get everything the way I would like it to look, I add in some leaves using the Gumball Green embossing powder.  It just "pops" against the Chocolate Brown and adds dimension to the piece.

Finally I mounted the piece onto a base of Rich Razzleberry and a layer of Crumb Cake embossed with the Woodgrain embossing folder.  Add the sentiment and it's all ready to go.

This is such a fun way to have bright flowers on a dark background.  It takes a bit of time but it's definitely worth it in the end.