Here’s another use of the Helping Me Grow stamp set, this one a bit more sunny as I promised yesterday. These flowers definitely wanted to be sunny.

Learning from yesterday’s card, I went straight for the stazon black to stamp the image on the water color paper. At least, I meant to. Somehow I ended up using the memento black instead but still cleaned the stamp with the stazon cleaner. I’m not sure what I was thinking!

I started with the centres – in crushed curry. Next were the watermelon wonder flowers – these were done in a fairly pale shade of watermelon wonder to start with with some extra colour layered on afterwards. The sepals are in a fairly strong mint macaron with the stalks just having a pale wash of the same colour. There is also a very faint wash of mint macaron around the flower heads which make them pop more without getting in the way.

I like to use fast fuse to keep the water color paper under control. I miss the wiggle room that the multi purpose glue gives but maybe that was making me lazy. I like to line up two corners and that means (assuming that the paper is cut correctly) that the layer will be right. It’s better to line up the longer side since there’s more distance to highlight any lining up issues.

It’s less than a week now until everyone can order the new goodies, including the Helping Me Grow stamp set, from the Occasions catalogue.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

No – the title isn’t some  deep dark comment on life, it’s the name of the stamp set that I used today. Helping Me Grow is a new stamp set in the upcoming Occasions catalogue which is live on January 5th. I tried looking at DSP but nothing was leaping out at me today so I went simple. Just some watercolour paper and ink.

The first attempt wasn’t so great – I’d take a picture but I wrecked it trying to save it. There was a little bleeding of the black ink (I used the new archival black) but the real disaster was the fast fuse that I put on the back of the watercolour paper grabbing onto the basic black mat before I was ready. I tried to trim and fix it. I even ripped the black off the back but when I tried to trim the watercolour paper a little, my trimmer mangled the paper – probably because the glue was there. So, I started over. This time I used stazon black. I used perfect plum for my watercolouring again and actually I prefer my second attempt. It’s more watercolour like  and less perfect.

As you can see in the close up, I have layered the colour and left white gaps here and there. My original attempt was a bit monotone.

I added a narrow black mat and then put this onto the perfect plum card base. My sister asked if it’s a sympathy card. I suppose it could be. I wasn’t planning it, I just picked the colour that felt right. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try the happier flower!

And a very warm welcome to my new blog follower. I’m so glad you joined in.

See you tomorrow,

Liz