Hydrangea for Mother's Day

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps has a challenge at their blog to use an oval. Since I was already on a Mother's Day card kick, I decided to make another one for this challenge.

I chose a hydrangea stamp by Hero Arts for the focal image. I stamped the image on watercolor paper in Archival Jet Black ink, since I knew I wanted to color it with my Inktense pencils and water. Because of the size of the image, I didn't really use a specific sketch.

The largest oval die by Spellbinders that would still fit well on an A2 card was a bit smaller than the image, so I decided to do a technique called "outside the box" die cutting. I positioned the die over the image where I wanted it, and made small pencil marks where the cutting line crossed the lower leaves. Then I took my scissors and cut around the portions of the leaves that would hang outside the oval. I replaced the die, making sure those leaf sections were on top of the die. Then I ran it through my Grand Calibur machine. The die cut everything but the portions of the leaves that were on top, so they hang out beyond the edges of the oval.

To get the coloring right on the flower itself, I looked up images of hydrangeas on Google. I decided on a purple flower, so colored only select areas of the petals with a purple Inktense pencil, to avoid having one solid color. I used 2 different greens on the leaves to add shading & further dimension. I blended the violet & greens with my water brush. Then I mounted the oval on the card front, made using a patterned paper from Teresa Collins "Fabrications--Canvas" 6x6" paper pad, with foam tape.

For the greeting, I printed one from this digital stamp set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps on a strip of green cardstock. I cut it narrower than the card front, and mounted it on foam tape, to have it the same level as the focal image panel. I then cut small pieces of the same cardstock into banner ends, and tucked them under the ends of the greeting panel, slightly lower, and glued them in place. I think this gives a nice effect. Finally, I adhered the completed card front panel to the card base with my ATG adhesive runner. Another pretty Mother's Day card for one of our heroes overseas to send to his/her mother!

I am entering this in Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' Challenge #5, "Use an Oval."