You're Inspiring

Hello, Crafters.

I'm really willing Spring to hurry up to arrive, and how better than with beautiful daffodils. Yellow isn't one of my colours, but I wanted to use these two beautiful daffodil stamps, so just had to go with it!

It's not often I use the tearing technique but it does make a very pleasant change! 

I decided I wanted to use my Stampin' Blends, so I started with a layer of Shimmery White Cardstock (CS), and stamped the larger of the two daffodil stamps using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink. Using the Light Daffodil Delight and Light Old Olive Blends, I coloured in the complete image. 

As some of the stems are very slim, I tried using the smaller tip of the pen, but found the actual nib is quite a bit wider than the tip of the brush. Two or three times I went over the lines, and I was amazed and thrilled at how fantastically well the Colour Lifter Blend worked. 

In my experience, this product is much better than the colour lifter we had with the Blendabilities, and also better than the Copic Colour Lifter I used in my pre-SU days! 

I didn't try to get any real shading on the stems or the leaves, but I did use the Dark Daffodil Delight Blend on the lower part of all the petals as well as the trumpet. I went back in with the Light Daffodil Delight and it blended so easily! I believe this is the first time I've used our Blends on our Shimmery White CS, and the results are amazing! I love them!

To create my card front, I took two pieces of Shimmery White CS and one of Daffodil Delight CS which were all the same size. I started tearing the image sheet towards me on the right-hand side, as close to the image as possible.

When I'd finished, I turned the layer around so the left-hand side was now my new right-hand side, and I did it again. Next I repeated the process with the Daffodil Delight layer, but making sure I didn't tear off as much because I wanted an edge of about a quarter of an inch on both sides. 

I layered the two pieces with torn edges together, and laid them on the second piece of Shimmery White CS to see how much white edging I'd been left with. It was about half an inch on each side, so I decided to dry emboss the lower layer. 

I used the leaf design embossing folder that is one of the two slim embossing folders that come in the Petal Pair Embossing Folders - the other design is flowers.  
I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work because I had to emboss one side, and then run it through again on the other side.  

I knew there was a risk that when I ran my cardstock through the Big Shot the second time, it could flatten what I'd already dry embossed, but I decided to give it a go, because I reasoned that the thickness of the embossing folder could keep the rollers off what had already been embossed. I was right, it worked beautifully!

I adhered the three layers together, making sure I centred the image layer, and trimmed a tad off top and bottom so there weren't any overhangs; then I adhered it to the Daffodil Delight card base.

Using Old Olive Ink, I stamped the HAPPY EASTER sentiment on a strip of Shimmery White CS, and punched it out using the Classic Label Punch. I also punched out a strip of Daffodil Delight CS, cut it in half and adhered it behind the sentiment so the yellow could be seen at either end of the sentiment. I adhered some Mini Dmensionals on the back of the sentiment, and was about to adhere it to my card front when I decided I didn't like the plain background around the daffodils! 

Another stamp in this set is what looks like bubbles, which I thought was a bit strange, but it would be better than having a plain background. I stamped off once before stamping randomly on the plain areas, taking a lot of care not to stamp the bubbles on the Daffodil Delight CS;
The bubbles finished the front of my card off nicely! 

For the inside of my card, I took a layer of Shimmery White CS, and tore down the right hand side, and used the smaller daffodil stamp to stamp a small part of the image on both sides. 

I coloured these images in the same way as I had done on the front of the card. I'm pleased how this card has turned out, albeit a little bit early for Easter, but it really oozes Spring and sunshine!

That's it from me today, so until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.