Chocolate Baroque Iris

Hi there, and here we are in to the last week of January.  Where does the time go?  I have two new followers who are Sylvie (Gibmiss) and Mau (mausplace).  Thank you to them and my other followers, I really appreciate all the kind words and encouragement I receive.  I'm sure they would appreciate you popping over to look at their lovely work.

Today's card uses a lovely Iris stamp from Chocolate Baroque  which is beautifully detailed.  I started by die cutting, using the largest die in the Spellbinders set Labels Thirty Three, on to white card, and by placing the die back over it I used Adirondack Dye Ink in Sunshine Yellow round the edge leaving a white space in the centre.  I then mounted this on to a snippet/scrap of grey card which I then cut a couple of centimetres bigger.  Alternatively you can use the die as a template, mark the outline and cut which will leave a slightly wider edge.  When mounting this on to the card I obviously had to cut the top and bottom to fit.  I could have used the next size down but I actually wanted it to look like an extension of the card and not a topper.

Using a snippet/scrap of white card I stamped the image using Distress Ink - Seedless Preserves on the flower part of the stamp,and Bundled Sage on the rest.  This helps as when watercolouring normally it is not a good idea to use water based ink for an outline, but as the colours were more or less right for those portions of the image, and I dragged some of the colour in to begin with, and with a nice pointed brush, it works fine.  For the image I used  DI - Seedless Preserves, Tumbled Glass, Spiced Marmalade, Bundled Sage, and Adirondack Dye Ink - Lettuce and Bottle.  I cut this out, and shaping a little first, mounted it using Pinflair Glue Gel.

I decided to make my own background using white card and the acrylic block technique with DI in Bundled Sage, Spiced Marmalade and Walnut Stain.  I used a white square base card, and decided to change the shape a little by using the same Labels Thirty Three die to die cut the back of the card.   It is possible to cut just the edge because this die is long and thin and the rest of the card comes up and through the die so that only the edge is under the cutting side.  About an inch in from the cut I scored and folded a piece in and then took a piece of the background I made and cut the shape but slightly smaller, and mounted it, and then decided to glue this down.  This makes a decorative edge to the righthand side of the card.  I cut an inch or so off the card front and mounted another piece of my background to it.  I then mounted the image on the front of the card giving a nice shape to the card front, overlapping it a bit so that when the card is shut the shapes overlap very slightly.  I decided that perhaps the front needed something extra so using two other stamps from Chocolate Baroque, a corner and a flourish, and using Versamark ink and WOW Gold EP, I stamped and heat embossed these.  I actually curved the flourish a little on the block before I stamped it so that the shape fitted in better between the two corners.

This was quite a difficult card to explain, but I hope for those that haven't done some of these techniques before the 'how to' is not too long winded.  I know that probably most people that visit already know all these things, but I always feel that for those that are trying to build up techniques then the extra explanation is perhaps worthwhile.  I would welcome feedback as to whether you feel the extra technical waffle is needed or not.  Perhaps one or two more novice crafters could leave some feedback about this as well.

I am entering this card in the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop where we have to snippets/scraps of card or paper, and I used snippets of white and grey card.