Well winter is well and truly here for me. The sky's are dull and the view from my crafting table, otherwise known as the dining table ๐, is dreary and drab. We has a little snow yesterday but not enough to make it a winer wonder land rather just enough to show up the dirt ๐. Anyway what's the weather got to do with today's inspiration I hear you ask.. well as I sit and face the forest the outlook is brown on brown and I need some colour! So decided it was time to make a card using a more hopeful colour palette.
As I had the joining offer exclusive stamp set on the table and my trusty Stampin' Write markers to hand this is what I came up with.
The style of the card is what is generally called Distressed. Now it's a big leap for me as I'm usually drawn to a cleaner look. But I had this idea and decided to run with it!
For the background stamped texture I used a new stamp set called Elements of Text. I used the mossy meadow pen from the neutrals marker pens and the soft sea foam from the subtles marker pens. These 2 shades of green work well together I hope you agree. I used the pens to add ink to the stamps rather than an ink pad. The Stampin' Write markers are a great way to add colour to your stash and there are lots of fun techniques you can do with them.
I used the dark green pen, mossy meadow, to just ink the leaves on the plant and pot stamp from the Handmade Designs set. Using the marker pen means that I didn't need to mask of the pot on the stamp each time I inked it up.
Once I'd finished stamping I took the light green, soft sea foam, marker pen and coloured in the leaves of plants. Now the distressing part. To add texture to the edge of the panel I ran the blade of an old pair of scissors along the edges. As the cardstock is a good weight you can be quite rough with it after all I was looking for a distressed feel ๐.
Once the white panel was finished I added it to a dark green cardstock panel just adhering it to the center. This leaves the edges to curl and come away a little . The sentiment was stamped with the dark green on a strip of the light green cardstock used for the card base. I then tore the edges both above and below the sentiment. Then I took the torn of edges and adhered them behind the sentiment strip to enhance to torn edge look.
A swirl of green twine from the Natural tones linen thread trio and a scattering of brushed brass butterflies, now that's a mouthful ๐, and the card was made.
What do you think? Has it hit the distressed feel? I have to say it certainly brought some greenery to my table as I made it.