Where Flowers Grow

Hi everyone I hope you are doing well.. The weather is a little warmer but it is still cold and also no real sunshine. I'm ready for sunshine and warmer temperatures. The crocuses and daffodils are beginning to poke their heads up and so I have hope that Spring will be not too far behind. And that leads me into today's post.When I saw the "Where Flowers Grow" stamp over at High Hopes I knew that I would have to buy it even though my crafting budget has been stretched to the limit lately. I bought a couple of other stamps but the one will probably wait to be used until next winter.

Anyway if you have not heard of High Hopes and you like to stamp go check them out as they have some really cute stamps. You can find the link to their retail stores here as well as find some great inspiration.. http://highhopesstamps.blogspot.ca/ Also you can enter their monthly challenge at this link and if you don't have one of their stamps yet can download a free digi to use. This month the theme is Anything High Hopes Goes so the sky is the limit.Who knows you may even win a chance to pick up a stamp or two of your choice. Although I get first dibs in winning. ;-)
http://highhopesstamps.blogspot.com/2015/02/challenge-152-anything-high-hopes-goes.html

Enough yapping on my part. LOL! Without further ado here is the card I created after many changes and being unhappy with how it was turning out. I decided to use my embossed border for another project as it just didn't look right. I tried ribbon on the side and didn't like that. Unfortunately in one place where I had the ribbon glued down the glue left a stain.. Then I saw the thin acetate stickers someone sent me years ago and this butterfly was perfect. Sorry I could not get a good full card photo with the buttons. See closeup below.

I decided that I wanted to go with a little brighter  colors so although I used my signature purple I added orange along with a blue. It was suppose to be a teal blue but for some reason my Stazon teal blue and Distress ink which is a teal blue didn't end up that way. I came up with this color combination because I was thinking of a favorite skirt which alas I outgrew. Of course I had to add green in the stamped image which is a neutral color.

I'm taking a class about the different inks online and the first lesson is on dye inks. I already knew how to do the technique for creating Distress Ink backgrounds and to be honest until I bought a blue the few Distress Inks I have were mainly used for edging images or once in awhile creating a background with a cotton ball. I love how this background turned out. but unfortunately now I' want even more colors. I've done this same technique with regular dye inks but it is not as watercolor looking.

I decided I wanted to use some flower shape adhesive buttons I have by Studio G. Since I didn't have any teal blue or orange buttons I airbrushed them with an orange Sharpie. The orange was too red orange so I sprayed yellow on top.

I bought the stamp unmounted and used removable double sided tape to adhere the stamp to an acrylic block. I prefer to do it that way as not only are the stamps cheaper but take up less space to store. Then I've found  sometimes in order to get a crisp image to stamp using a foam pad like a mouse pad. It depends on what you are using whether you will have to do this or not. In this instance the paper was slightly textured.

Then I got to have fun playing with my color pencils. Of course I had to sharpen some of the pencils first. I don't know why it took me so long to break out the pencils and start to use them.

I was going to play with my gelli plate which has been feeling neglected last week but never got around to it so I'm off to play now. Thank you for stopping by and do come back later on this week to see what the Altered Playing Card challenge is. It is anyone's guess right now. Only Claudine knows what it will be.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!