Hello: Orange and grey

Once again, I’m cutting it fine creating a challenge entry in time… where does the month go? It took a while to figure out what I was going to do for this; there were three palettes to choose from and either of the others would have been easy choices for a floral card (both had pinks and greens), but I was drawn to the third with its more graphic greys and oranges.

Inspired by:

The layout was inspired by one of Dawn Woleslagle’s recent cards, though I had forgotten that she also used a “friend” die on hers until I went to find it again so I could link it here.

How:

The background mosaic was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed in silver to match the greys I planned to use. The lacy flower was stamped in the corner of another piece of watercolour card and heat embossed in gold to match the yellow and oranges. I masked that off and stamped it twice more to fill out the two sides of the panel.

I coloured each of the flowers with a single marker, varying the depth of colour by using differing amounts of water. Once it was dry I fussy cut it out, leaving a narrow border which I coloured in dark grey (and I even remembered to run my marker along the white cut edge).

Now I knew the shape of the front panel I could see which of the mosaic squares needed colouring. I did the ones bordering the panel in the darker grey and the others in light grey. I coloured a strip along the bottom of each rectangle and drew the colour up to the top with a waterbrush.

I die-cut the “friend” three times, twice in black for sturdiness and once in white to create an offset highlight along the edge so it would stand out. Then I decided to add the strip of silver behind it, so I could have got away without the extra layers, but I like how it looks. I heat embossed the “hello” on a second strip of silver and also mounted the dot of the i on it.

I used strong tape to fix the flowers to the background panel — the watercolour cardstock had only warped a little bit, but I didn’t want to risk them peeling apart. I added some thin foam tape behind the sentiment and carefully lined it up across the card. All that was left to do was to mount it on a slate grey card base with more strong tape. I did contemplate glossy accents on the “friend” and maybe a couple of sequins, but I’m practising stopping when it’s finished and not going too far. I can always add more later if I decide it needs it.

The thing I like most about this card — the thing I think makes it works as nicely as it does — is that grey background; there’s enough going on to be interesting without detracting from the yellow and orange of the flowers. I shall definitely be using that mosaic stamp again…

Challenges:

• Seven Hills Crafts July Colour Challenge
• The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge

Supplies:

• stamps:
  My Favorite Things – modern mosaic background
  Waffle Flower – lacy flower
  My Favorite Things – things with wings (sentiment)
• dies:
  My Favorite Things – friends
• inks:
  Versamark
• embossing powder:
  Judikins – silver detail
  Judikins – gold detail
  Judikins – black detail
• colour:
  Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers – 050 yellow, 060 brown, 070 orange, 090 gray, 091 light gray
• paper and card:
  Distress watercolour cardstock
  Papermill Direct – smooth – gray slate
  Papermill Direct – peregrina – sandgrain – silver
• miscellaneous:
  Inkadinkadoo – stamping mask paper