Make A Wish | Bright Lily | Uniko

It’s crazy to think that I took a two month break from crafting, and now I’ve posted three days in a row – and twice today! Even before I got sick I hadn’t been posting regularly. I certainly seem to have got my mojo back, and I hope it lasts.

Yesterday and the day before the cards I posted were cute cards. For today I decided I wanted to do something a bit different a go pretty with a floral card. I wanted to use some of my large floral stamps from Uniko, and realised I’ve never actually opened the lily stamps, so that’s what I chose. And I wanted to go for an interesting colourway. After a bit of online researching I came across this photograph and decided to use that as the inspiration for my flower.

Initially I stamped the lily, from the Pure Florals: Lily stamp set, in black ink on the smooth paper I use for colouring with my alcohol markers. After trying several different approaches, each on a different petal, I decided that the markers just weren’t working for this.

Rather than giving up (though I’ll admit, it was tempting!) I switched plans and decided I’d try with colouring pencils. I don’t use them much, because I don’t have fancy pencils. In fact the ones I used are actually watercolour pencils, I just didn’t activate them. I don’t have the proper paper for using with pencils either, but I did have some mixed media paper which I used.

I decided I would go for a no-line colouring look. I stamped with Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink, and then began my colouring. I worked one petal at a time, initially with very light layers which I then built up. Usually when I colour I work as though my light is coming from the top right. With florals I try not to worry about that quite as much because I sometimes find all the folds and so on to get a bit confusing. I do try to keep that light source in mind but florals are quite forgiving. With each petal I used my lightest pink to map in the pink areas, then a yellow to map the yellow areas. I then worked from darkest to lightest building the shadows, and kept adding layers until I was happy with how it looked. Once the colouring was completed I fussy cut the image out and started working on the rest of the card.

I really wanted the flower to pop and shine on my card, and putting the bright image against a black background was the perfect way to do that. I trimmed down a panel of black card and embossed it with a Subtle embossing powder to add just a touch of texture. I cut a slightly larger panel of white, gutting the centre for conservation, and used some of the gutted away piece to create a banner for the sentiment.

I used Catherine Pooler’s Party Dress ink to stamp the sentiment, which is from the Pure Florals: Cosmos set, onto the white banner, then used Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue to adhere it to the flower to create one piece. I intentionally adhered it so that one petal was in front and another behind the sentiment strip, which gives some fun depth to the design.

With all my elements prepared I simply used more of the Tombow Glue to adhere all the layers together. I considered using a yellow card base but decided to go with fuschia instead as I felt it helped the flower stand out more.

This was definitely not a quick card to make! The colouring was, of course, the most time consuming part of the process. It was fun though and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I’m not the most confident colourist and it always makes me very happy when I manage to successfully colour something, especially when it’s as tricky as this was.

Love,

Lady Joyful

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Challenges included:

Crafty Gals Corner – For The Ladies

Creative Confetti – Favourite Flower

Digi Choosday – Anything Goes

Moving Along With The Times – Flowers

MFT Sketch Challenge – Sketch

Papercraft Challenge – Anything Goes

SheepSki Designs – For Girls

Stamping Sensations – Say It With Flowers

The Paper Shelter – In Nature

Uniko Challenge – Bright and Happy (edit – where it was chosen as one of the top 3!)