inkblocks: FAUX WATERCOLOR PETALS

Hi friends!

Playing along with this BEAUTIFUL BLOSSOMS challenge

Anything Floral Goes with Optional INSPO photo #43 (ends 8/1)

and this TRIPLE B: BIRDS, BUTTERFLIES & BLOOMS challenge

with Optional INSPO photo (ends 7/31)

I came across this beautiful technique on the YouTube channel Positively Papercraft. The video is titled 5 Ways with Vellum (from about two months ago).

It’s incredibly hard to get a true-to-life picture of this card, but I did my best.

THE PROCESS

Starting off: To create the colored vellum paper (above) used for the flower, I colored in short stripes of various alcohol markers. When the sheet was full of color, I spayed it with isopropyl alcohol - a bit too much, I think, and a couple marker colors weren’t dark enough. My header does mention arty experiments, and I like to bring projects to you as I go along, even when they aren’t perfect.

As the alcohol was drying, I stenciled a white panel with orange and purple inks to pick up the colors in the petals.

After the ink was dry, I applied the double sided adhesive to the brighter side of the vellum (shown above), leaving the backing sheet on. I stamped the flower in Versamark ink on the duller side of the vellum and then heat embossed it with detail black powder. (I think I may have been a bit too heavy-handed with the anti-static powder because some parts of the lines rubbed off and I had to fill them in with a black sharpie fine point marker.)

The flower was die cut, and applied to the card front as shown, over the stenciling.

Finishing up: The sentiment was die cut from gold glitter card stock, and adhered as shown. As soon as it was in place, I had instantaneous gluer’s remorse - I wished I had scooted it over further into the purple to have the front of the H over the stem. But Bearly Art glue has a remarkably fast drying time on paper. A few gold flat back gems were glued on near the petals.The decorative panel was mounted to a pale purple panel, and then onto the white card front