My Time To Craft Inspirational Design
In the Garden
Good day, fellow crafters. I am thrilled to introduce my inspirational submission for the My Time To Craft Challenge Blog, challenge #518. The theme for this challenge is “Garden”, and while I do have a traditional food garden the word “garden” to me always brings to mind my grandmother’s flower garden. So for my inspiration submission, I chose to go that route and bring you a glimpse of what I envision when thinking about the word “Garden”.
For every challenge we, as the design team, attempt to bring you themes and ideas that will test your abilities and, ideally, ignite your enthusiasm to explore fresh ways of thinking. However, what I like most about being part of the team is seeing how we each showcase our take on the theme and sometimes just what the card means to the creator.
I hope you are inspired to enter this challenge and I can’t wait to see your creative take on this week’s theme. Be sure to tag me on your entry and/or comment below so I know to watch out for you. Remember Crafting is Happiness!
I started by looking through my floral collection to see which of the ones in my stash embodied my design vision the best. In the end, I decided that I would incorporate this lovely stamp from Bruus Monroe’s Glorious Garden stamp set featured on the left. I also wanted this to be a very light and airy card so I turned to my favorite medium and broke out my Altenew watercolor pigment set and a high-quality watercolor paper.
I then placed the watercolor paper into my Misti stamping tool, aligned the stamp, inked it up with some black pigment ink, and then with even pressure stamped the image. I like to do this at least twice so that I can ensure that I get an even transfer of ink and a nice crisp image. The next step was to transfer the paper from my Misti over to my worksurface and secure it down.
When it comes to watercoloring, my tool of choice is a water pen brush, I feel as if it gives me more control and fits better in my hand than standard brushes. So I next refilled the pen with some water, added some water to the pigments to get the colors I wanted to use, and then painted this lovely background panel. I made sure to take my time and give only the lightest of coats to the piece. When finished I set the background panel aside and allowed it to dry thoroughly.
The next step for me was to create the sentiment. For this card, I chose one from the Spellbinders Fragrant Flowers stamp set (STP-033), featured right. I of course utilized my Misti stamping tool once again to align and then ink the sentiment in black pigment ink just as I did the image. I then used a small rectangular die from a nested die set and cut out the sentiment. Once the background panel was dry I then adhered the sentiment to the panel.
The last step was assembly. I trimmed my background panel down to its final dimension as well as a black mat for visual interest with a really neat die set I had in my stash. I adhered the two together with some double-sided tape and then adhered the composite to a white square card base in the same manner. With this done I called the card complete.
I hope you find inspiration in my creation and want to create something yourself as we at My Time to Craft would love to see it.
