This of That Thursday Two-tone Flora

 After all the bright colours of the last 2 days I decided to calm it down again.  The colour choice was due to one of the  beautiful Fine Shimmer papers from the Fancy Flora suite . The colours are a soft green, a pretty lilac and a gold. They are all absolutely gorgeous with their shimmer and the way they catch the light in real life is just beautiful.

So I chose the soft green, called soft succulent,  as it's not one I chose very often. Sometimes you have to step outside the box don't you think?

So the colour palette was decided and I knew I wanted to use the large background die that is in the coordinating Two-tone Flora bundle die set. This die is a large intricate one that has so many uses.  

I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to use it as a mask. I started by die cutting it from basic white cardstock.  I then cut myself a mat of basic white cardstock and layed the due cut over top. I secured it so that it wouldn't move around. I then took a blending tool and the soft succulent ink and added colour through the die cut mask.

This technique is great in that it is a twofer. You not only get the inked image when you remove the mask. But the mask itself has been coloured beautifully!! So with that in mind I made 2 samples . 

The first uses the inked background.  I matted it onto a piece of the oh so shimmery soft succulent fine shimmer paper. I then stamped and die cut the sprig image in the green too. I then used my wink of stella shimmer pen to pick up the green ink and colour the sprigs. This gave a soft shimmer to them. A simple sentiment  from the Something Fancy bundle stamped in a darker shade of green called evening evergreen. I die cut the sentiment and added ribbon in the same shade of green behind it.

I then turned my attention to the die cut panel. I carefully cut it to size and adhered it to a piece of the green fine shimmer.  I love the tone on tone effect. The soft shimmer shines through almost highlighting the die cut piece. I finished the card in the same way as the first one. 

Now I was in a dilemma! Which did I like the most? The simple elegance of the first card? Or the shimmery finesse of the second?

What do you think? Oh and if you like the products they can now be found in my online shop by clicking here.