Bright Floral Birthday

The second card I have to share with you today has a bit more going on than the first did. My starting point was the colour challenge from The Color Throwdown (Edit – where it was a top pick!) I combined it with the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch (Edit – where it was a favourite!), and, when I’d decided what I’d be doing I figured it would be good to include Allsorts‘ Fabulous Floral challenge too.

I decided I wanted to use my floral stamps from Altenew’s Wild Hibiscus. I also wanted to do a one layer card again. I started by using a strip of post-it tape to mask off the bottom portion of the card base at an angle. I then started stamping my flowers from the line back, masking as required (I had several of the masks precut as I keep them when I’ve made them). I made sure to pay attention to which flowers would be in front and which behind to give as organic a look as possible. I kept stamping and masking, moving the masks as required, until the card was covered. When I removed the final masks to see how it all looked I was worried I might have gone a bit overboard with stamping.

I removed the post-it strip and drew in a soft grey line to demark the area. When I started colouring I realised it would be useful to have that mask still in place to help keep me from going over the line. I didn’t quite get it lined up properly, but it works well enough.

I started colouring my flowers, doing some in pink and some in orange. I’ll be honest, I managed to totally confuse myself with regards to lightsource and where my shadows should be. I thought I knew when I started, but I got a bit lost somewhere along the way. Luckily the organic nature of flowers means they are quite forgiving so it doesn’t seem too obvious. I tried to make sure I had some variation in the colours, rather than having all the pink flowers together, for example.  I also coloured in the green stem and leaf. In hindsight I wonder if I should have left the stem and leaf out and coloured the background behind the flowers green… Certainly would have given a different look!

Once I was done with all the colouring – and it took me quite a while! – I removed the post-it tape again and started considering my sentiment. I decided to use the scripty Happy Birthday sentiment that I’d got from Hobby Craft. I lined it up how I wanted it and used my MISTI to stamp it with black pigment ink. At this point I realised the pigment ink (one of the 30 little inks I’d got as a set in my Hobby Craft order) was very dry. Certainly explained why I’d been having to restamp my flowers so much to get the lines crisp… I only got that ink when I was in England, so it’s not lasted very long! Although I have been using it a lot. Anyway, I switched to the other black pigment ink that had come in the set. Made a huge difference – I only needed to stamp once!

Of course where the sentiment overlapped the pattern of flowers it was getting a little bit lost. I knew that would happen and was prepared for it! My solution was one I picked up from watching YouTube cardmaking videos (I think I first saw it on one of Kelly Latevola‘s videos, but I could be wrong.) Basically, I took my white gel pen and carefully outlined the letters to help differentiate them from the background. Of course because I’m a dummy I did this before the ink had completely dried, which lead to me smudging it slightly… Wouldn#t be one of my cards without a bit of smudging… (At least, that’s how it feels recently!) Thankfully it doesn’t really show much at all!

When I finished the card I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Or, well… I liked it, but nothing more than that. But as it sat on my desk, looking at me, and waiting for the light to improve for photographs, it began to grow on me. And now… I think I might love it. It’s bold, bright, and just a very cheerful card.

Love,

Lady Joyful