(When Life Get's You Down) LOOK UP

Would you like to play around with a design like this? You'll find a supply list below, including a link to the stencil I used from A Colorful Life Designs . Follow the link below and use discount code ChrisFan10 to save 10% on your entire order! (Master Creator Bundles are excluded as they already have a 20% discount built in.)

A walk in the evening, a meadow full of flowers, stars in the endless sky. A deep breath.... and a calm falls over your world. Looking up helps to put everything into perspective.

Getting Started:

Card Base: 5.5 x 8.5, scored and folded at 4.25

Black Border: 5.5 x 4

Card Face: 5.5 x 3 7/8

Stretch Your Pennies:

when I create a card with this kind of a border layer - full length but narrower - I often simply cut a thin stripsto run down each side, saving the rest of the cardstock for another use.

Card Face:

I used the Wildflower stencil to create this card: this stencil acts as a mask in that the flowers and leaves are actually covered on the card stock, with the rest of the image being inked around them. So that took some thought... what if... hmmm .... let's give it a try!

• First I decided on positioning on my card front - this is a 6 x 6 stencil, so it wasn't all going to fit on an A2 card.

• After that I held the stencil up against the paper to see where the flowers would be positioned, and then I brushed a circle of ink on in that area. I did this for both of the blossoms, bringing the stencil back in several times to check on my positioning and adjust where necessary. I built the ink up just a bit towards the center of each blossom.

• I did this for the leaves as well, adding ink with a light hand. I used two different greens here to give added interest.

• When I felt I had enough ink laid down , I sprayed the back of the stencil with Pixie Spray and laid it carefully over the image, covering what I had inked, using a small brayer to be certain that I had good contact. Then I started applying blue ink in the open areas. I used three different blues here, again to give some depth and interest to the image.

  ** when I applied the pink and greens, of course I went outside the areas that would actually become the flowers and leaves. But using both a light hand and light ink strategically meant that I could cover it up with the blue ink. It created subtle new tonalities in the background, which worked beautifully for depth/visual interest.

• I removed the stencil, made sure that my blues were intense enough to create the effect I wanted, and then added a darker green to the base of the leaves.

• I added spatter using white metallic watercolour , which created the feel of stars that are far, far away.

• Then I brought in a stencil called Curved Sweep to create the shooting star (I used part of an arc) and Banded Split to create the small circles that would become the brighter stars in the sky. (I used one of the dots, and just kept moving the stencil around.) I used a silver metallic pen for both of these.

• I wanted them to look a little more "star-like", so (using the same pen and a very light hand) I drew intersecting lines across each of the circles to create the rays of light, and on the actual "star" of the shooting star.

• At this point I was undecided: I sat and looked at it, walked away, came back and looked at it some more. I decided to create a feeling of whimsy by using very tiny gems for the shooting star. (these are actually for nail art, and are very tiny!) I glued them in place.

• I used a shimmer spray across the card face to add some magic to our evening stroll (and because my bottle was almost empty it also added a few more spatters).

Other:

By this time, I knew what sentiment I wanted, but I didn't have it as a stamp so I created it on the computer. To do this I created an image in Canva (a free online program, but use whatever you have!). I created a black rectangle, and then inserted the words in white. I printed this and then applied Versamark and a couple of layers of clear embossing powder. This has the effect of making the font appear bolder. I cut it down to the size I wanted, and the sentiment was ready.

Assembly:

I glued the black border layer to the card base, and the card face on top of this.

I glued the sentiment in place on the card front.

Final Thoughts:

I'm please with how well the experiment turned out. I love the look of that night sky against the wildflowers. I'm still undecided about the use of the gems .... they pull attention directly to the sentiment, but it might have been better to leave them off, and allow the shooting star to be just one more part of the night sky.

Supplies:

Stencils: Wildflowers, Curved Sweep, Banded Split, all by A Colorful Life Designs

ink: Stampin' Up!

blending brushes: Stampin' Up!

Versamark: Amazon, Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp

clear embossing powder: Wow, Amazon, Simon Says Stamp

metallic watercolour: Amazon

metallic pens: Amazon, Scrapbook.com

nail art gems: Amazon

adhesive: Tombo Aqua, Amazon, Simon Says Stamp

card base: Accent 100 lb., Amazon

black cardstock: Stampin' Up!

card face: Accent, 80 lb, Amazon

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