A Card and a Tag April 2020

Decided to do a little something different for a change. I decided to take a vintage stamp and try to replicate the design found in vintage paper. So, while pondering this challenge, I started searching through my pads and came across Prima’s Nature Garden paper pad. I ended up using this paper pad for a vintage card and the scraps for a tag. For the card, I used Unity’s Strength in Wisdom Kit. I used the March 2020 Growth is a Process SMAK Kit for the tag.

I began by stamping the vase on the patterned paper using a combo of inks, Thistle Archival, A Gina K brown and a black ink to try to achieve a comparable ink color. I then used pencils, pens and white chalk to whiten the rose petals. I added pencils and chalk to the side for a shadow and stamped a sentiment from the kit using the same inks. I added corrugated paper and another patterned sheet as backing, die cutting them all. I also added little half circles cut out from the same pad, twine, tear drop crystals (was having a sad day) and purple crystals to complete the card.

For the tag, I used the scrap paper to add pattern to the background. I also tore up some words from a mixed media magazine and added those. I adhered the torn up pieces using gel medium, added white gesso with a knife to fill in cracks, and used my fingers to add mixed color combinations of mint, brown, pink and cream acrylic paint. I dried the tag between each of these steps. I added white gesso over the area I was going to stamp the flowers and the vase. I then stamped the vase, a little off center (and actually a little crooked, which I think I fixed) using the same inks as on the card. I then added another background stamp from the kit in black around the bottom, side and top of the tag.

Next I pulled out mint and pink inks and started randomly stamping the tulips from the kit. I used pens and watercolor pencils to very slightly add dimension to the flowers and stem. I then used a charcoal pencil to outline everything. Next I pulled out a shiny mint colored texture paste, a Stencil Girl stencil and started adding petals around the bottom and in the bouquet. After that was dried I also used the charcoal on those. Finally, I stamped the postage stamp lightly around using the Thistle ink. To complete the tag, I stamped, cut, adhered and outlined the sentiment, added butterfly crystals, ribbon and darkened the edges and called it done.

Must admit, while not being works of art, these totally distracted me from current events. And, besides needing that, perhaps, I also needed the messages they conveyed. Well, enough for today! Hope you also get your crafting on!