Love with all your heart

Hi Everyone!  The sun is shining today which led me to want to work with happy colors!  Follow along and I'll show you what I made...
I'm starting with my favorite background technique - Wrinkle Free Distress.  I'm using Ripe Persimmon, Evergreen Bough, and Fossilized Amber + water.  Squeeze out enough to get a good bit of stain...at least a 4" circle.  Keep them close together without mingling the colors.

I'm using Ranger Manila Cardstock as my surface.  Lay the cardstock into the ink and push it down so it can pick up the stain.  Pick it up and dry with a Heat tool.  Go back into the stain as many times as you see fit, drying between the layers.

 I stamped over the dry surface using archival ink and the Patchwork stamp

This Stampers Anonymous stamp has two images of the patchwork.  I used the larger of the two sizes for the card.

The Tonic Distresser allows me to alter the edges of the cardstock.  It's a little tool I have had for many years and I still use it all the time!

 I cut a piece of black cardstock, then stitched the colorful background to the surface (this will eventually be mounted onto a card).

My stitching was a little white so I used Distress Collage Medium Vintage to slightly age the surface including the white stitching (try not to eat it because it looks like caramel sauce).

 I thought I could show you a better example using a plain manila tag.  The left side has a thin coat of the Distress Collage Medium Vintage.  You can see that it gives the surface just a slight age to it.

Next I cut some a couple flowers with Watercolor paper and the Wildflowers Thinlit set, one of my favorites from the CHA release.  I chose to use Tumbled Glass, Evergreen Bough, and a bit of Fossilized Amber.  I started water coloring the flowers by adding a wash of Tumbled Glass then little by little I added bits of Evergreen Bough with the water brush.  As you work from the top to the bottom the ink will dry allowing you to create layers of color.  The Fossilized Amber was added last wherever there was a bit of white paper still showing.

I decided the card front still needed something to let your eye rest.  Enter Textile Surfaces - I chose one of the linen self-adhesive fabrics and cut it into an oval using the SIzzix Stacked Ovals die.  I did stitch it to the card front...and even though my stitching is not perfect I'm cool with that.  Means it's homemade right?

I used Multi Medium to add the flowers to the card front.  You might notice that I clipped the flowers apart and moved the pieces around to give it more of an organic feel.

And to finish it off I added a sentiment from a Small Talk sticker book and a tiny Mirrored Heart.

I thought I was done, but then I decided to add brown speckles with the Distress Marker Spritzer.  I didn't want to get the over spray on the card front so I created a mask using paper I found in the garbage can (no joke).

How did I avoid getting the brown flecks on the flowers?  Easy.  I painted them with a thin coat of Multi Medium.  The MM acts as a resist and will allow you to wipe off an Distress Ink with a wet wipe.

Hope you enjoyed today's tutorial as much as I did making it.  I love the watercolor flowers!  This technique of adding the colors one by one and seeing how they react to each other can be so relaxing.  I really could have painted an entire garden! 

So here's to more crafting, more relaxing, more creativity!

now carry on,

paula

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