Monday 21 September 2015

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!

4 comments:

Di said...

Wow Jane, this is absolutely fabulous! You're certainly on top of those Distress Inks, such a rich and beautiful background - and wonderful overstamping and embossing! I forget the details but at one time farmers were paid grants to leave field margins - a great idea for wild life etc.

Hugs

Di xx

Stephanie Jane said...

Beautiful scene and I love the rich autumnal colours of the background.

For the wild flowers, my favourite is the central reservations on the main road into Brighton past the football stadium. Wildflowers everywhere!

Stephanie Jane

Debbie said...

Lovely card thank you for joining us this week at Sweet Stampin. Debbie x

Sammy said...

This is just gorgeous! I think you can move on from Novice to "Fabulous"! :-) Thank you for joining us at Sweet Stampin' this week. Sammy-x