A Special Day

I love creating cards with poinsettias.  Today I have a card designed with the Memory Box "Poinsettia Bloom" stamp.  I thought I would do a tutorial below on how I created it.  I don't like to copy other people's work but ran across a beautiful card created by Joy Taylor that gave me inspiration for this card and just had to try it.  Here is the link to her beautiful card.  I didn't have an old book to use for the flower, so that is why I used the Graphic 45 paper.  I love the technique she used.

Before I do the tutorial, I want to tell you that this is a 5.5" x 6" card.  I embossed a piece of card stock for the background with the Swiss Dots embossing folder.  The pretty frame is the Cheery Lynn "Scandinavian Hearts" doily.  One of the pieces behind the poinsettia is the center doily out of that same die.  I also tucked in a few Marianne Design elements listed below.  This can be a birthday card for someone in December.  The stamp in the lower right corner is from the Paintbox Poppets "Snow Princess" stamp set.  You can circle the day of that special birthday and add the year at the bottom.  This is a great stamp to have for those December birthdays.  You could even use it for Christmas Day.  A few Kaiser Craft Pearls were added to complete the card.

I used a piece of design paper from the Graphic  45 "Ladies Diary" paper pad and white embossed the Memory Box "Poinsettia Bloom".  I used "Fired Brick" Distress Ink for the flower and a combination of "Crushed Olive" and "Forest Moss" Distress Ink on the leaves.  I have this really neat little Ranger Ink Pallet you can get from Joan's Gardens that holds all the Distress Ink colors.  I used the large Ranger Water Brush to color the image.  As you see in the photo, I stamped the image 4 times because they would all fit.  I only need three of them for the flower.  Two images were painted with the red ink and one just the green petals were painted.

Here is a close up to show you how I did this.  I cut out the larger flower, the smaller center flower, so I could create a 3 layered flower.

Here are the three layers cut out.  Notice how I cut out the green leaves.  I cut around the outside edge but didn't cut them off.  I just cut up into the flower image a little way but cut the piece so it was all in one piece.  By doing it this way, it was easy to layer just like the stamped image.

After I had all the pieces cut out, I used the "Brushed Pewter" Metallic Distress Stain to cover each piece.  There is a dauber on the end of these stains, so you shake the bottle really well then just swipe it over the design.  After covering each piece with the stain, you need to dry it.  I used my heat gun.

When the pieces were dry, I used the tools from the Flower Tool Kit to shape them.  Before doing that, I did use scissors to cut around the petals, up toward the center of the flower, so it was easier to shape each individual petal.

This picture shows you the difference in the color of the flower when using the Distress Metallic Stain.  It is pretty without the metallic shine but I really like the muted look.

I guess I will have to go out and purchase an old book because I would love to try this technique doing it the way Joy did.  I do have that Penny Black stamp.  I think you will have lots of fun playing with the new Tim Holtz Metallic Distress Stains.  

Memory Box "Poinsettia Bloom" (G1788)

Ranger Ink Pallet

Ranger Water Brush

Distress Stains "Brushed Pewter" Metallic

Paintbox Poppets "Snow Princess" stamp set

Cheery Lynn Scandinavian Hearts Doily set (DL155)

Marianne Design (LR0192) Flourish

Marianne Design (LR0236) Flourish

Kaiser Craft White Pearls

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