Wildflower sunset

Have you noticed (well, here in the UK anyway) how farmers and councils are leaving uncultivated strips at the edges of fields and verges of roads, to encourage wild flowers and wildlife to flourish? It seems to have been particularly noticeable this summer, or perhaps I've only just noticed it because I've been able to get out and about more after a couple of years of not going out much due to health issues. But I think it looks lovely - nature doesn't stop and think "Do these shades of green go together? Will this buttercup look OK next to this thistle?" and yet everything DOES go together, perfectly.

I was thinking about that when I was going through some old issues of Craft Stamper a few weeks ago, and set one aside as there were a few projects in it I still wanted to try. It was a very old copy - I think it is dated 2004 - and it's funny to see how the products and ideas available to us have changed over the last decade, yet the core techniques are still going strong.

I was keen to try this one as I'm still very much a novice when it comes to using distress inks. I blend them around the edges of paper to define and distress them, but seldom use them for anything else.

For this scene, I stamped the black silhouette flowers and foliage, all from an old Graphicus stamp sheet, with Staz-on ink onto glossy card and then blended four different colours of distress ink all over the surface, starting with yellow towards the centre and working outwards with orange, red and a touch of green.

Then I overstamped it with the large flower heads, using white ink and heat embossing with white detail powder. Finally I trimmed the scene and matted it onto black and orange card.

I am sharing this with Sweet Stampin' Challenge blog where this week the theme is Emboss it!