Hello, Lovely, You Inspire Me!

Aloha,

Sometimes, a card takes a romantic turn, leaving botanical accuracy in its wake. Such was the case with today’s card, inspired by the AECP course All About Layering 2, with its fuchsia blossoms and buds nestled amongst vining leaves.

A large, focal vine, from Altenew’s Baroque Motifs stamp set, grounds this card with its elegantly swirling leaves, bejeweled with fuchsia. Gina K. Design’s Masking Magic was used to protect the stamped image so background depth could be created with flowers seemingly winking from behind leaves. When adding the flowers, the outline image was stamped in Simon Says Stamp’s Intense Black Ink. Though the subsequent layer placement was easy to achieve, the stamps were positioned and tested on a sheet of laminated plastic prior to stamping. These bold flowers, stamped in pinks and purples from Altenew’s Rose Petal and Enchanted Garden color families respectively, are offset by the vine’s deep green hue of Altenew’s Shadow Creek ink.

For the lighter colorway, secondary stamping featured prevalently in the vines and flowers. In order to protect both cards with masking without needing to stamp and cut a second mask, the release paper from the first card was used. Tombow’s Mono Multi Liquid Glue is repositionable when allowed to air dry. This adhesive was applied to the release paper and then carefully adhered to the card. Because this glue has more tack than Masking Magic does, additional care was needed to remove the release paper.

The fuchsia outlines were stamped with first generation stamping. In order to soften them, Hero Arts’ Unicorn White Pigment Ink was brushed on the masked and stamped card with an I-Crafter I-Brush Ink Applicator Brush. Together, these evenly muted the outlines from black to a lighter gray, and the resulting color added greater cohesion to the soft, leafy vine scene. Brushing the white pigment ink onto the card front also primed the surface for increased lightness of the flower layers. The flowers were largely stamped with secondary stamping, except where a second impression was needed. In those instances, shifting down the colorway to the next lighter color produced harmonious results.

The vibrant card’s “you inspire me” sentiment, from Altenew’s Painted Butterflies stamp set, was stamped in Altenew’s Ultraviolet ink, which is from the same color family used for the purple portion of the blossoms. Backed with two additional layers of cardstock, this sentiment almost trails off the final swoop of the lower vine, but instead emphasizes its curve towards the centermost fuchsia blossom. The lighter variation’s sentiment, “hello lovely,” from Altenew’s Fancy Greeting stamp set, was stamped with Altenew’s Obsidian Black Pigment Ink and is the boldest feature on the card, drawing the eye to the triangular trio of fully blooming fuchsia.

With such a graphic vine and multitude of fuchsia, no other finishing details were needed to showcase the beauty of this layered stamp set.

Mahalo!