Monday 20 February 2017

Aged to Perfection Birthday Card

I had been asked to produce a few more cards suitable for men or boys, so decided to make a card which is masculine, but could also be given to a female gardening enthusiast.  It was great fun to make, especially adding colour to the herbs, pot and vegetables using my water brush and distress inks.

I started with the Tree Rings stamp by Deep Red Stamps.  It was stamped onto Sheena's Stamping Card using Coffee Archival ink, trimmed round leaving a narrow border and then coloured using Tea Dye distress ink and a water brush.  Although I have the distress markers, I often use my glass mat as a palette and my distress ink pads for colour.  No ink is wasted, as I simply spritz any unused ink with water and use a piece of deli paper to mop up.
 






I had already die cut and embossed the herbs and flower pot from the Herb Garden set by Sheena Douglass as well as the beetroot and onion from the Home Grown set.  I then stamped each die cut with the matching stamp by laying the stamp face up, inking it up with Jet Black Archival ink and pressing the die cut face down onto the stamp.  This creates such a realistic effect; even better when the stamped die cuts have been coloured.
I matted the background onto brown card, leaving a narrow border.  In the mean time, I had used the glass mat palette with distress inks and water brush method to add colour to all the stamped/die cut elements.  Flowerpot - Gathered Twigs: Beetroot - Dusty Concord overlaid with Aged Mahogany and leaves in a mixture of Forest Moss, Peeled Paint and Crushed Olive; Onion - Fossilized Amber overlaid with some Walnut Stain; the herbs in a mixture of the same greens as the beetroot leaves, Iced Spruce as well as Dusty Concord overlaid with Iced Spruce.  
I wanted to make an A5 card (A4 hammered card folded in half), so needed to create another background piece.  I cut a piece of Stamping Card 19.5cm x 13.3cm and embossed it using the Skeleton Leaf 8" x 8" Texture embossing folder.  It was then brushed over with Tea Dye distress ink using a Clarity stencil brush to highlight the embossing and matted onto a piece of the same brown card as the tree ring background (this time 20.5cm x 14.3cm).
 





The Aged to Perfection sentiment is from the Bygone Farm stamp set (again by Sheena Douglass).  It was stamped using Coffee Archival ink onto Sheena's Stamping card, trimmed round and matted on to some of the same brown card as the background and added using foam tape for dimension.  Once all the layers had been added to the base card, the flowerpot and herbs were glued on flat and the vegetables shaped and added using a mixture of foam tape and glue..

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