Thank You!

Hey everyone.

If you have been following my Instagram posts today, you will know that I have been playing with Simon Says Stamp Even More Spring Flowers Stamp Set from Best Days release. I have all of the Spring Flowers stamp sets in the series. I love the design of the florals especially the stitching detail on them. Being a Easter public holiday, I spent my time colouring these images. I will share how I made the card but first here is the full reveal.

I love the vibrant rainbow coloured florals and leaves. Perfect for spring. The images are coloured with both distress inks and copic markers. Yes! Both water and alcohol medium. Here is how I make the card.

I smooshed five watercolour paper panels with two shades of each distress ink colour. The colours I used are Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry for pink, Salty Ocean and Mermaid Lagoon for blue, Wilted Violet and Seedless Preserve for purple, Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn for green, Dried Marigold and Spiced Marmalade for Orange, Mustard Seed and Fossilised Amber for Yellow and finally Evergreen Bough and Peacock Feathers for Aqua. I smooshed the lighter shade first, dried the paper before smooshing the darker shade to get the texture and vibrance of the colour.
Then I used the MISTI and Simon’s Intense Black ink to stamp the images from Even More Spring Flowers stamp set on the ink smooshed watercolour paper panels.
I used copic markers to add shading to the stamped images. I used three to four shades of each colour to add the shaping. Here is the picture of the shaded images on the watercolour panels.

I love love these panels as is. The shading on the images are more apparent on this panel compared to die cut images you see on the card.

4. Next I die cut all these images using the coordinating dies. So now I have heaps of these gorgeous florals to make cards. I used a few of the die cuts to make one today.

5. I picked die cuts in rainbow colours and arranged into a big cluster of flowers and leaves. I used press and seal to keep them together. I added details to the die cuts using Sakura white gelly roll pen before I made the arrangement.

6. I then die cut a white cardstock using the largest wonky stitched rectangle die. Since the cluster is bright, colourful with lots of details, I kept the background simple white for good contrast.

7. I used liquid glue to adhere the bottom layer of die cuts on the white panel and foam adhesives for the top layer and double foam for the blue flower. Love the dimension on the cluster.

8. I adhered this panel on a grey card base. I didn’t want white panel on white base. That is too much white. Now the grey card base lifts the white panel and the white panel is a great platform and contrast for the rainbow colour flower cluster. The white detail on the cluster tie in with the white panel. The stitching details on the white panel ties in with the black stitching detail on the cluster.

9. I kept the sentiment simple but with high contrast by embossing the sentiment in white on black cardstock.

10. No embellishments as I didn’t want to take the focal off the rainbow coloured flower cluster.

Here are some closeup of the card.

I love this way of colouring images. You can see the layers of distress inks on the background and the shading with copic marker on the top. It takes a bit of time to do the smooshing but well worth the effort and time.I went back to distress inks instead of distress oxide because I love the vibrance of colours in the distress inks without the oxidation effect of the oxide inks. I picked up this technique from Kelly Latevola. She is amazing with her colouring skills and I love her videos because I learn a lot from watching them. So a huge shout out to her and thank you very much for all the videos, Kelly. You are amazing!