Flower Frenzy

When I picked up this wildflower silhouette set I just knew there were going to be a bunch of fun ways to play with them. I don't think I've seen a card or page yet for which this style of image hasn't worked. And since I really like to get messy with my Distress inks, I knew there'd be a lot of options. here's just a sampling of the different ways I've used this stamp

First came, of course, a straight up black silhouette. I am also generally in love with this checker/harlequin pattern. So when the opportunity came up to use some bold reds/oranges I couldn't stop. Its not the world's greatest picture, but I had fun layering/misting/re-layering/re-misting the distress inks to get the fun background. Then it was just a matter of finding the right black (you'd think they're all the same... but they're not.) Finally, the little label up front is actually that really thin wood veneer paper you can find around these days.

This one is a different style of Distress ink manipulation. Here I started with some blues and purples/mist/blend/repeat until desired effect. Then I crumpled the paper up really well and re-flatenned it. Brushing the deep purple ink over just the crumpled edges gave it this aged but whimsical (purple instead of browns) look. Finally (again, bad picture) its been misted over quite a bit with some pearly glimmer mist. Then for the flowers, thistime I wanted to do a bold black silhouette and a second "ghosted"/faded silhouette. It gives a sense of depth to the card that I like.

For this one I actually started by wanting to use the ribbons. I merged some elements of the first two cards (vertical Tissue tape, three dots in the bottom left, ghosted flowers, etc.) and ended up with this. For the background, this time I inked directly on my craft mat, misted to get it all juicy, then dragged the paper through it a few times till I got the desired color (really light this time around).

Finally, I was done with black. I was still feeling the warm sunset-tones from the first card so I grabbed some scraps out of my trusty scrap pile and went to work. I inked the stamps directly with shades of Distress ink (light colors first, then darker along the edges). I misted it well to get that blurry effect, and stamped twice - the first time bold, the second time "ghosted". A little ribbon, a few brads, and some piercing for good measure, and it was done.

I really like how the same set of inks/stamp and a few embellishments can give you so many different looks! I definitely need to dig into this set again!