Wildflower: Day 2 and IC536

Concord & 9th's beautiful set Wildflower makes my heart happy, so I'm doing a series of posts showing different uses for the outline images in the set. To see yesterday's post, click HERE.

Today's technique (watercolor with markers and spritzing) is one I usually limit to solid images...it just doesn't occur to me to use it with outline stamps. But this card shows how pretty the results can be!

The layout and colors of this card were inspired by the Inspiration Challenge this week at Splitcoast, which is called Easter Egg Hunt. The pin I used as inspiration can be found HERE.

If you look at the inspiring pin, you'll notice that the droopy flower and oval shape are directly copied, as closely as my supplies allowed, but in mirror image, since my flower looked better drooping to the right. It's great that clear stamps can be bent on the acrylic block to create different looks...the stem stamp is straight, but it bent adequately to allow for the droop.

Tip: If your clear stamps aren't sticking well enough on the acrylic block to bend them, clean them with water and a bit of dish soap, and let them air dry. They should stick nicely after all the accumulated dust and oils are removed.

To ink the flower stamp, I covered the whole flower in Memento New Sprout ink and added Bamboo Leaves from a marker to try to mimic the coloring of the flower in the photo. Then, after lightly spritzing the stamp with water, I pressed it firmly to the paper. The stem is just stamped with Bamboo Leaves and spritzed, but I added a bit of New Sprout marker inside the lines.

The layout came to me when I realized how much I dislike ovals stuck on cards. Not sure why, but the oval shape feels odd and old-fashioned to me. Then, it occurred to me that cutting a larger oval out of the front of the card would create an interesting mat for the popped up focal point.

For cutting ovals, I have the old Creative Memories oval cutting system, so you can make three oval mats. For this card, the smallest oval was cut from craft foam and used to elevate the stamped oval. The CM cutter won't go all the way through foam, but it will mark it clearly enough that you can use scissors to cut it out all the way.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Why not give the watercolor technique a try on some outline stamps? Or if that doesn't sound fun, check out the IC536...there's some beautiful inspiration in this week's challenge!


Supplies
stamps: Concord & 9th, Papertrey
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: markers, water spritzer, Creative Memories oval cutting system, craft foam, scissors, glue