Floral Silhouette Best Wishes

Hi everyone.  Here's a card I made recently using a technique, demonstrated by Chrissie Stokes on YouTube, for making backgrounds using flowers and/or leaves placed between two pieces of absorbent card and put through the die cutting machine, and the resulting moisture leaves some pretty colours and patterns on the pieces of card.  I filled up an A4 sheet and started to roll it through my machine and it was a bit difficult to turn the handle but I managed to do a few turns.  I turned the sheets round and started from the opposite end, but the problem seemed to be in the centre so I cut it in half and put just half through at a time, and this worked better.  I also lined the card above and below with a piece of kitchen towel which stopped it making too much of a mess.  It worked fairly well and there were some areas where you could pick out the shapes of the leaves and stems, but also some bits, especially the buddliea flower I used, left big blobs of intense colour which were not particularly attractive, so I cut these off and am left with a few pieces which I thought would look nice as backgrounds, and this is one of them.

This piece was mostly areas of green and a little light purple and I decided to add a bit of script to the background using a stamp from a freebie set being used for the first time, which came with Simply Cards and Papercraft Magazine No. 239.  I stamped it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, but I thought it needed pushing back a bit so I sprayed it with water and softened the look.  I also stamped one of the flower images from the set in the top left and bottom right corners using Carved Pumpkin Distress Ink, and just left it as is.  I then stamped the Crafty Individuals Flower Silhouette stamp called Wild Flowers and Ferns using Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.  I finished by adding some colour behind the flowers and around the edges using Fossilized Amber and Carved Pumpkin, and further darkened the edges with a bit of Vintage Photo.  I then added this to a white card 7" x 5", but ended up cutting a little off the length to give it better proportions.  

Not a lot of the original card with the crushed foliage technique can be seen as it is fairly well covered with inks, but I think it gives a good starting point, and maybe the next piece I use I will do a bit less inking to show it off better.  For those of you that might be interested you will find the You Tube video here.

Thank you for coming to visit the blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

NBUS Challenge - No. 53 where we use our Never Before Used Schtuff.
Stamping Sensations August Challenge - Mood Board/Anything Goes.

Simon Says Monday Challenge - Use Your Favourite Technique - Mine is Stamping.
Triple B August Challenge - Anything Goes using Birds, Butterflies, Blooms (any one, two or all three).
Beautiful Blossoms Challenge - Anything Goes/Optional Mood Board No. 8.