Summer Skies

As promised I am back to share how I created another of my launch night samples! This particular card has been created using stamps from my brand new stamp set EKC06.

The tall flowers in this set have been based on delphinium flowers although they can be anything you want them to be - I hardly ever draw my flowers 'true to form' so that they can be interpreted however you want!!! The little swirly bits on this sheet have been added so that you can stamp swirly tendrils onto any of the stems if you so wish. You may notice that nearly all the components have been drawn with straight stems and this is because I believe this provides greater versatility to a stamp as when placing the stamp onto your block you can either keep the stamp just as it is with a straight stem or you can bend or curl that stem either to the left or the right thus changing the look of the image - you'll see exactly what I mean in just a minute. I like to do this a lot when stamping out my compositions and sometimes (being that my stamp sets all come pre-trimmed on an EZ mount backing) the stems will want to 'ping' back into the correct shape on my block. So to prevent this from happening I tend to use a Tombow repositionable glue on the back of all of my stamps which makes the EZ mount even tackier and provides greater repositionable adhesion when manipulating the stamps on an acrylic block.

Anyway let's get cracking with how I created the above card -

 Step One (Above): Using a sponge wedge, sponge Chalk Fresco Finish paint over an A5 Smoothy Card panel. Then still using the sponge wedge apply Tinned Peas Fresco Finish paint and Lavender Fresco Finish paint in a purposely streaky fashion. Blend where the two colours meet each other and add some faint cloud shapes into the Lavender area using Chalk Fresco Finish.

 Step Two (Above): Stamp some background imagery using Leaf Green Archival bending the flower first one way and then the other between each inking and stamping. It was at this stage I changed my mind about the shape of the card and decided to trim the panel to 14.5 x 14.5cm.

 Step Three (Above): Paint the stems with heavily watered down Tinned Peas Fresco Finish paint and add Chalk Fresco Finish paint to the dots on the flower heads using a smallish head from an embossing tool!

 Step Four (Above): Stamp some more background imagery using Leaf Green Archival then add some foreground imagery by stamping the tall flowers in Jet Black Archival adding some stamped swirly tendrils to the stems.

Step Five (Above): Stamp some extra tall flowers and some dragonflies on pieces of Smoothy Card using Jet Black Archival.

 Step Six (Above): Paint the imagery on the panel using Lavender, South Pacific, Haystack, Inky Pool, Tinned Peas and Sugar Plum Fresco Finish paints. Add Chalk Fresco Finish to the dots on the imagery using that same embossing tool head.

 A closer look above at how I painted the tall flowers.

 Step Seven (Above): Paint the extra flowers and dragonflies using the same paint colours as mentioned in step six. Cut out.

Step Eight (Above): Stamp and emboss extra imagery across the base of the panel using VersaMark and Crystal embossing powder. This provides a subtle layer which every so often you catch a glimpse of when it catches the light!

 A couple of closer looks at step eight. (Above)

 Step Nine (Above): Paint some strips with watered down Chalk Fresco Finish so that you can still see the layer beneath rather than blocking it out. Heat set then stamp the words over the strips and paint the letters with watered down colours of Fresco Finish paint - choosing colours already used on the panel.

 A closer look at painting the letters with the paints. (Above)

 Step Ten (Above): Adhere the panel to a slightly longer card blank and edge where the panel meets the card with a black multi-liner. Mount just one large tall flower and two little dragonflies to the panel. (I kept all the other extra cut out imagery and used them for another card so they weren't wasted! - I always tend to do more than I might need in order to give myself options when creating my compositions.) Lastly add accents with the black multi-liner and add some extra sparkle to the imagery with Crystal glitter glue.

A couple of close ups for you of the flowers and dragonflies.

I hope that these step outs have given you an insight into how I go about creating my samples!

I'll be back on Thursday at midday to show you another stepped out card :).

Love Kay xx

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