Vellum Flowers

Hello, Crafters.

I'd like to say I had a really busy day yesterday getting the house straight after having had visitors for the previous two days. But I didn't. I went into my studio instead! LOL!

I'm planning to do it tomorrow. My excuse is that by leaving everything out makes Christmas last a bit longer! 

Yesterday, the first job I did was to sort out the new Spring catalogues and Sale-a-bration catalogues. They are now all packaged up, envelopes addressed and stamped and are on the way down to the post box, as I write this!

I made today's card using the new Helping Me Grow Stamp Set that'll be available on 5th. January 2016 when the new Spring catalogue goes live. This is the same day that sees the start of Sale-a-bration.

Like a lot of the cards I make, this design evolved. The only thought I had was that I wanted to heat emboss this flower in white and paint in Rose Red ink with green stems and leaves, and yellow middles.

Then I decided I wanted to layer the flowers so I heat embossed and coloured two lots of flowers.

The flowers/buds you see are one stamp. The stems go down quite a long way. I think it would be quite easy to use either the two on the left, or the two on the right as their own. I need more play time with this set.

After I'd finished painting both sets of flowers, I fussy cut one set of all four flowers/buds and sat them on top of the first set to see what they looked like. Then I knew what I wanted to do.

I started with a card base of Whisper White Card Stock, with a layer of Whisper White and a top layer of Whisper White.

I embossed the top layer using the Gently Falling Embossing Folder and adhered the three layers together using Tombow Glue.

This is when it started getting difficult.

I wanted to put a frame around the vellum but the only dies I could find that would do the job were the Squares Collection Framelits Dies numbers, 5 and 6.

The problem was the height of the vellum was an absolutely tiny, tiny tad taller than the die - it was so tight, there was no leeway to adhere the vellum to the frame, on the top or the bottom.

If you look at the vellum under the top Rose Red bar of the frame, you can see a shadow which shows that that part is open. It's a lot more obvious when you look at the actual card. I carried on because I decided, at least, you'd still see what I was aiming for!

Although it wasn't intentional, I love how the flowers are coming out of the frame. I used Dimensionals to adhere the four fussy-cut flowers/buds to the framed piece of vellum. I used Old Olive Ink for the leaves and stems and Crushed Curry Ink for the flower centres.

I stamped the birthday sentiment on vellum using Versamark and White Embossing Powder. I did some painting behind the sentiment using Rose Red Ink and a Blender Pen. I'm really pleased with the overall effect, but next time I use this technique, I'll go lighter on the ink. I think it looks fine here but I think it would look better if it wasn't quite so heave.

I die cut the vellum using no 6 from the Tags & Labels Framelits Die and then nos. 5 and 6 for the Rose Red Card Stock frame.

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.