Hydrangea Blues

I wanted to save the best for last. Before I took the embossing paste class from Lynell Harlow at Dreamweaver Stencils, I had played a bit with the stencils and paste but was never happy with it. Guess I had to learn the finesse ideas. I was more open to dry embossing with the stencils and even that wasn't all that. I am a convert! If you can't take a class, buy the DVD. I saw it at Joann's. There are several quality brass stencil companies (and even some stainless steel) but Dreamweavers is, in my opinion, the most versatile and grown up of the ones I have used.

So here is the last one I made. I am taking a break from crafting and posting for a few weeks. Been reading a lot of computing and code books and perhaps will be doing my own website (I need to reserve the domain) so the possibility exists somewhere down the road, this blog will go and the actual domain will take its place. I haven't decided as it's a pretty big endeavour. But I do want to save the domain name anyways. Paper Tango is taken-it is owned by Gartner which you may have noticed is sold by Target in their card department. I often pick up clearance items to use such as plain card fronts and stickers. Never pay retail!! It isn't where I got the name tho. I imagined the ink pads and stamps dancing and put it together.

When I made this card front, I didn't know which way was up. So I photographed it both ways. It works either way. The hydrangea stencil is huge! So the resulting card is very large,too-it would definitely take extra postage to mail. I placed the stencil on the watercolor paper and oil colored the image after swirling the colors on wax paper as a palate.Use a small stiff stencil brush for this. When you have your "look" place the stencil back on, swipe the transparent paste across and remove excess and before it dries, add your transparent micro glitter to the flowers. I did not put glitter on the leaves and branches-not on purpose, only the blossom. You know how glitter is, right Allison? It was very easy to variegate the oil colors on the individual blossoms and I was even able to make leaf veins, using a curved edge.The oil crayons come in 5 packs and 20 packs that I know of. I bought seasonal-so this is spring. Before adding to the card front, I distressed the edge of the watercolor paper and added a bit of brown ink on the edges to bring out the color of the branch.

My card base color was pulled from the embossed flowers. The same went for the green of the leaves. All eventually was layered on a plain black card. When I did the green layers, I didn't have much paper left, so I did L's. It all gets covered up so no one knows. I am anal about not wasting paper. Maybe that isn't always a good thing but it's who I am-a heartfelt recycler and hoarder.

You can see the embossing paste better with this photo. When you look flat on, the paste can look flat and you won't see that it's quite substantial and this card is heavy. I didn't want to use ribbon or stamped words, so I dug a bit and found some mini brads that captured the colors of my oils and added sets of two in the same color on each corner except the middle one. I pop dotted the layers for more dimension using teeny poppers. I think these are from All Night Media and I have had them for forever.

I would like to thank all the independent stores I visit especially Stacey . I may not leave the ideas the way they started out but the ideas multiply and I usually get carried away, which is what happened with all this embossing samples recently. Who knows what may happen next?! Today I bought some metallic paper, so my head is full already. I just need a break and some extra arms or hands to do the crap stuff so I can do the craft stuff. See ya later peeps.