Secret Garden Watercolor

I am still playing with the Secret Garden stamp set and the coordinating framelits and I'm having a blast!  My initial reaction to this bundle was not enthusiastic since I already have so many floral sets.  BUT I won a free stamp set of my choice from one of the contest my generous upline, Patty Bennett, had last month and I decided to get this set anyway.

I saw Tim Holtz do a similar technique with distressed inks and I wanted to try it with Stampin' Up's classic ink.  I swiped the ink pad directly on my craft mat and sprayed the ink with water.  And I used that as my "ink pad" to ink the stamp.  I love the variation you get and it's much quicker than traditional water coloring.

I used primrose petal ink and water on flowers on the right side, which was original plan.  The group on the left side were stamped using a mixture leftover from another project that I found on my work table.  That mixture was alcohol, shimmer paint and cherry cobbler ink (I think!) from the look of the spray bottle.  As you can see, they turned out light pink but real pretty IRL.  I haven't figured out what to do with those.  All the flowers were die cut with the coordinating framelit die.

I wanted a good contrast with the primrose petal flowers so I chose island indigo to be the base card.  This is so striking in person.  The border on the bottom was heat embossed in clear embossing powder, to add just a subtle texture.  The stamp is from the Border Banter set which was in the 2012 Holiday Catalog and alas, didn't make it into the 2013-2014 Catalog.  The sentiment is from the Itty Bitty Banners set, stamped in island indigo ink.  The ribbon is island indigo from SAB.

I love, love how this turned out!  Did you notice I didn't sponged anything?  LOL, don't worry the next project will have some sponging and more techniques.

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to check out tomorrow's post which will include picture tutorial.

Cheers!!!

irene