New Adventure

One of my mom's assistants is leaving her position at the end of this school year. Since she's not really retiring, Mama asked me to make a "non-retirement" card for her.

Since I have never made any retirement (or "non-retirement") cards, I did a search on Pinterest to get some ideas. I found this card, which I decided to CASE after Mama approved the design.

I began by stamping the "Chicory" image by Our Daily Bread Designs onto a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper, using second-generation stamping with Hero Arts Soft Granite ink. Because the stem was too short for my design, I used one of the stamps from Simon Says Stamp's "Artful Flowers" set to lengthen it. Then I did some no-line coloring with my Inktense pencils, using a damp paintbrush to pick up and apply the color.

I had seen Nichol Magouirk do a floral card on one of her YouTube videos. She had added a "glow" around the image with watered-down Evergreen Bough Distress ink. I liked the look, so I decided to try it on this card. Well, it didn't work out for me quite as well as for Nichol! Basically, the edges were just too harsh, and I couldn't seem to blend the color out softly to white. So I ended up coloring the whole background with Evergreen Bough & a wet brush.

Once I'd finished the painting, I scanned the panel into my computer. I used that image to place my text in Photoshop, then printed the text directly onto my panel. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the right margin of the greeting mimics the curve of the stem. Talk about a happy accident!

After rounding the corners of my focal panel with my 1/4" Corner Chomper, I matted it with black, trimmed to 1/16" on all sides, and rounded those corners. I cut a piece of patterned paper from My Mind's Eye's Cut & Paste "Adorbs" 6x6" pad to 4-1/8x5-3/8", and matted that with black after rounding the corners of both. At that point, I decided I wanted my ribbon to go just around the patterned paper panel, so I CAREFULLY peeled it from the black mat, and wrapped a piece of sheer white ribbon around the panel, adhering the ends to the back. I adhered my focal panel over the ribbon, and "re-matted" the patterned paper. I created a bow, following this tutorial, from the same ribbon, and tied that on. Finally, I adhered my completed card from to a white A2 card base, and rounded the corners of the base.

I'm entering this card in Our Daily Bread Designs' "April Showers Bring May ODBD Flowers" challenge.