Friday, March 15, 2013

Poppies That Pop off the Background

I designed a colorful background with depth, combined with PanPastels to make these lovely  poppies from Sheena  pop off the page.


To make the background I spritzed a full sheet of cardstock with water, then spritzed a variety of colors- mini ministers filled with inks, Perfect Pearls and water - a recipe I learned from Tim Holtz . I picked up the cardstock and tilted it to make the colors blend.   The ink colors I used are pretty in pink, night of navy and tempting turquoise.   NOTE:  The paper will curl up when it's wet. When you dry with heat tool, in a future step, it will flatten back out. Another tip I learned from Tim, use the heat gun on the front and back to dry it completely.


Next, I laid another piece of cardstock on top to share the colors - two for one! :o)  After I pulled them apart, I blotted with paper towels and dried with heat tool.


I spritzed color through a stencil and dried with a heat gun. I repeated to cover the complete sheet.  NOTE: you'll need to protect the other parts of the cardstock if you only want the color through stencil.


Next, I used a blending tool and stencil randomly on the the sheet to add some depth.


I cut the sheet into A4 sizes to have a few backgrounds to use as it is, or to add more colors later - depending on design I want.  For this card, I stamped the poppies and drew in the stems. I colored with PanPastels.   The PanPastels are easy to use and are so vibrant. They are a dry medium and very forgiving. If you accidentally color where to don't want to, you can just erase with a clean eraser.  When you are finished coloring, you will need to spray with a fixative to keep the color in place.  NOTE: After the fixative is sprayed, the PanPastels are permanent and cannot be erased.

 

Shout Out:  The techniques I used to design this background were inspired by Dyan's videos. You can see them here.

Crafter's Companion has several beautiful images. For more ideas, be sure to pop over to the Crafter's Companion Information Blog, as well as visit the Crafter's Companion DT members. Their latest designs are showing on the side of my blog.


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Take care and STAY POSITIVE!