Hi, There, Stampers!
I haven’t looked back through my most recent posts, and I can’t remember if I told you that my husband and I were going on our first road trip in 17 years. Well, we did and we made it back! We drove through 10 different states, 5 of them twice. Later on this month I’ll share what I did with a fun Stampin’ Up! kit while I visited with family in Minnesota!
But for today, I have something else a little different. It’s different because the stamp set that I used for this project is not from Stampin’ Up! I made this card at the request of a family member, who definitely wanted a Lotus theme for the card. Unfortunately there is no current Stampin’ Up! set with a Lotus. And I rarely keep a retired Stampin’ Up! set. I only have room enough for current sets so I can show you products that you might like enough to buy from Stampin’ Up! through me.
So I ordered a set from another Stamp Company. Everything else on this card is a Stampin’ Up! product, though. And they’re all definitely worth buying, especially when you know you can use it with other stamp sets you might have in your own stash.
An Instant Layout
When I heard the word, “Lotus,” I instantly pictured some Lotus blossoms floating on something layered. And those layers would have to have some colors that related to water. As the idea started to develop, you can see that I decided on the Layering Diorama Dies, along with Pool Party, Coastal Cabana, and Bermuda Bay for my colors.
It was late in the day when I developed this very specific picture in my mind, so off I went to make it happen. I cut a piece of each color of cardstock 4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″ and die-cut the Bermuda Bay and Pool Party pieces, layering them on a background of Coastal Cabana. Hmmm. It looked a little plain. Something needed some texture. I looked through my embossing folders and the Painted Texture 3D Embossing Folder almost leaped out of my folder box. I quickly ran the Coastal Cabana background through my Big Shot, layered the three colors up and headed off to bed.
Tweaking the Layout
When I got up in the morning, the layout still looked pretty good to me. But then I had to figure out how I was going to make it into a card. Aha. I needed that Coastal Cabana base color to be the card, with the other two layers lying on top of the base. Once I figured that out, I had to choose which stamped images were going to be on which layer. I turned out that I only had to add two stems into the layering before I adhered all the layers together.
The Most Fun – Coloring the Lotus Blossoms
This was to be a wedding card. So I wanted the Lotus Blossoms all to be white. I stamped them all using Bermuda Bay Ink and thought that might be enough to make them stand out against the background design. Nope. It didn’t work for me. I needed them to have some color. But neither Stampin’ Write Markers nor Stampin’ Blends worked for the look that I wanted. Oh, wait. I have Watercolor Pencils! I haven’t used them in years, but they’ve still hung around in my craft room. And, amazingly enough, I had some of the Water Painters that I bought last year but never used. OK. Let’s continue with the “Something Different” theme.
For the main part of all of the Lotus Blossoms, I used the Coastal Cabana pencil from the Watercolor Pencils Assortment 2, lightly coloring around the edges of the petals. Then I used the smallest of the Water Painters to soften the color and the edges. Where there are some darker shades, I used the Bermuda Bay pencil from the Watercolor Pencils set and the same Water Painter.
I finished the flowers with a center colored with the Daffodil Delight pencil from the Watercolor Pencils set.
A Tip On the Layering
To start with, I wanted a layering strip all along the edges of the layers. Stampin’ Up! does sell Foam Adhesive Strips. But I didn’t want something that was as thick as they are for this project. Instead, I trimmed edges off sheets of Stampin’ Dimensionals. I could get several strips about 1/16″ wide from the Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals. It was really easy to line those up along the edges of the layers and adhere them all together. I keep the inner areas of the layers steady, I added a few Stampin’ Dimensionals around each of the die-cut edges.
The Finishing Touches
With these colors, the Faux Sea Glass Shapes embellishments were a perfect addition. I sprinkled them all over the card front, including all the layers. For the inside of the card, I adhered a 5-1/4 x 8-1/4″ piece of Basic White Cardstock. I stamped a sentiment from the Peaceful Moments Stamp Set and stamped another Lotus Blossom image (darned if I didn’t forget to take a photo of that!).
The Bottom Line
This was a fun project, both to design and to construct. And now I think I need to start getting the watercolor pencils out a bit more. I’m thinking some Autumn colors would be a good start.
Happy Stamping!
