Avant Garden

Hello, Crafters.

This
is my first play with the Sale-a-bration (SAB) Stamp Set called Avant
Garden. 

Judging by the orders I see going through, I think this is going
to be the most popular stamp set in the SAB Catalogue!
 
After
using the Watercolour Pencils on the card featured in yesterday’s paper
piecing video, I wanted to play with them some more and decided this
stamp set would be ideal!

I
started my card with a base of Soft Sky Cardstock (CS), then a layer of
Shimmery White CS and a top layer of Soft Sky CS. 

I started with the
image and stamped it onto a piece of Shimmery White cardstock,
using Basic Black Archival Ink. 

The
Watercolour Pencils come in a set of 13 pencils of various Stampin’ Up!
colours including Whisper White (page 24 in the Spring catalogue). 

I chose Old
Olive for the stem and leaves of the flower, and Bermuda Bay for the
flower heads, which has developed into a lovely shade of blue that goes
brilliantly with Soft Sky. 

I left space in the centre of three flowers
so I could use Daffodil Delight. 

Using the largest oval die from the
Stitched Shapes Framelits, I die cut the image but felt I had done the
wrong thing because there was so much white space below the flower head
down to the bottom of the oval!

I decided to fill this with my
sentiment, which is also from Avant Garden.

I stamped it in Basic Black
Archival Ink, onto a piece of Shimmery White CS and flagged the end. 

I
decided not to layer the image or the sentiment but they both needed
some definition, so I sponged the edges with Soft Sky Ink, which worked well. 

There
are a lot of techniques in card making that I really like and creating
my own background paper or CS, is certainly one of them! 

I started
decorating my top layer using the splatter stamp from Avant Garden, tone
on tone, all round the edge, but it didn’t look anything special. 

I
cleaned the stamp and repeated the process using Whisper White Ink. 

This
improved it, slightly, but it still needed something more!

I looked at
the stamp set again and saw the leaves – what a penny-dropping moment
that was! 

I should have stamped some leaves on the stem to fill the
white space! DOH!!

I
decided to stick with my plan, and I used the leaves around the edge
but stamped them in Bermuda Bay Ink, so that they stood
out a bit.

My final touch was to paint the flower head and stem with Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen. I love the finished result!

Obviously, I need to re-visit this and add the leaves – watch this space!

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.

Tombow Liquid Glue: 110755