I love how this card turned out because, for once, it actually turned out just the way I wanted it to.
The thing that took the longest was finding the right flower stamp to fit the design I had in mind and then flipping the design because my original sketch had the flower curving the other way… though waiting for the crackle paste to dry came a close second. And I had to make my own stencil for the vase — even with a fresh blade it’s a pain to cut acetate cleanly.
I smooshed watercolour paint on the background behind where the vase would go. Once that was dry, I stamped the flower and then applied the crackle paste through the vase stencil and left that to dry naturally — crackle paste is one of those things that you just can’t speed up (apparently, I’ve never actually tried using a heat gun on it, I must have a go sometime, see exactly how it affects the result).
The crackle vase turned out as well as I could have hoped. I did add a tiny bit of Inktense colour over the top to tone down the bright white finish and I also added a thin layer of gel medium to protect the crackle as it was going to be sent in the post.
I coloured the flowers with Inktense pencils and added little dots of copper to the tips of the stamens. I grounded the vase with a line of black Stabilo All pencil which I blended out with water.
After adding the sentiment, I trimmed the panel down, added a score line down each vertical edge, and finished it off with a thin strip of purple card.
Colouring:
- paint:
QoR watercolours – dioxazine purple
Stuart Semple – copper - pencils:
Derwent Inktense – 0800 violet, 0740 mauve, 1500 field green, 1600 leaf green, 2020 indian ink
Stabilo All – black
HB pencil
Supplies:
- stamps:
Clearly Besotted – fresh flowers
Altenew – birthday greetings - stencils:
handmade vase stencil - inks:
Versafine – onyx black, smokey grey - texture:
DecoArt Media – crackle paste - paper and card:
Clairefontaine Paint On – white 250gsm
Hunkydory Adorable Scorable
scrap of purple card - miscellaneous
gloss gel medium
Crafty Rat 
I think this card is lovely and the vase is a great texture feature. Love the background too.!
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Thank you! The vase was a bit of an experiment, I hadn’t used crackle paste like that before, so I was really happy with how it turned out.
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Oh this is awesome! I have never used crackle paste. I love how it adds so much texture to your card. Beautiful card!
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Thank you! It’s simple to use – you just have to have enough patience to let it dry naturally! I wasn’t sure how well it would work, I thought it might be too thin to get decent crackles (the thicker the paste the bigger the cracks) or that it might warp the card, but it worked perfectly.
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