More Cacti, Succulents and Flowers

Hi there.  These are three cards which were my contribution to the TV launch of these new Chocolate Baroque stamps which were shown on Hochanda at the beginning of June and are the last of the cards I have at the present time featuring these three new sets.  The first card features Scrumptious Succulents.

I used four of the different cacti and made a nice arrangement by masking, and then coloured using quite a few colours of Distress Ink applied with a waterbrush, mixing colours to vary the greens, and as you can see the two succulents at the front have quite a blue tinge.  In my ignorance I wrongly thought that cacti came just different tones of green, but after looking on line the colours vary enormously.

I finished by adding some white gel pen on some of the cacti and flower centres, and then added one of the sentiments, and matted on to kraft card before adhering to the white card.

This next card was made using Captivating Cacti

I started by making a sky background using a piece of white velvet card smooshed with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink using it spritzed with water on my glass mat and the card pressed into it several times to cover the card.  This particular blue is quite a strong one so I did use quite a bit of water as I didn't want it to be too dark.  I then used a Crealies Pierced Rectangle die to cut it.

I used another piece of the velvet card and stamped the image using Versamark Ink and heat set it using WOW Opaque White Embossing Powder.  I coloured it with the DI and a waterbrush  using Carved Pumpkin and Mowed Lawn, together with small amounts of Cracked Pistacio, Twisted Citron, Lucky Clover and Ground Espresso to help give light and shade.  I then fussy cut the image.

As an afterthought I decided to give the sky a couple of grey clouds and also grounded the cactus with some underneath the base using Hickory Smoke DI.  I then gave the image some shape before adhering it with Pinflair Glue Gel, and also added the sentiment using another piece of velvet card which I stamped with Smokey Gray Versafine Ink on a fishtail banner secured beneath the cactus.

This last one uses the Blossom and Grow set.

I decided to have a go at an alcohol ink background using Flamingo and Limeade and some of the alcohol blending solution on to some glossy paper I already had.  It worked quite well but I had to be quick mixing it with the blending solution as it was inclined to sink in to the paper and where there are two or three purple blobs is where it sunk in and wouldn't move.  I'm not sure why it went purple but as it happens it complements the red and green so looks OK.  I saw Heather Telford using some gold leaf with an alcohol piece she had done, as the alcohol does leave a bit of residual stickiness which the gold leaf will stick too, so I gave it a try and although you can't see it in the photo small amounts stuck to the surface.  I finished by giving the whole piece a buff up with a soft tissue which made it shine beautifully. 

I stamped the flower and two of the leafy stems and coloured them with a waterbrush using Distress Inks including Picked Raspberry for the flowers and Twisted Citron, Lucky Clover and Cracked Pistacio for the foliage.  I then fussy cut them and added them to the background using Pinflair Glue Gel to give them some dimension.  The foliage wasn't so bad but the flowers were extremely fiddly with lots of little nooks and crannies.  If I had used a lighter weight card it would have made life a lot easier...lol, but I did like the look of the finished result.

I finished by adding the sentiment stamped using Versafine Smokey Gray Ink just cut in to a simple rectangular shape and cut this to fit my rectangular card using a Crealies Pierced rectangle die.

Thank you for joining me today and I hope to see you again soon.