Bluebells

Hello my crafting friends, great to have you with us today please do leave a comment so I know you have visited.

I would love to know what sort of craft some of you enjoy the most, is it card making, canvas, home decor? Or maybe sewing and knitting might be more your scene. Do you like Mixed media or vintage or maybe die cuts to messy crafting? Lots to think about but I would love to know, there is so much out there at the moment.

Well today is the last day of my school holidays for a while so although I have loved posting more often it will no doubt go back to 2 or 3 times a week as I wont have as much time to craft, oh how I would love to give up work and be able to craft all day lol!

Today's post I created using some of Sheena's older stamps, I am ashamed to say I have some that I have never got round to using yet and this Bluebell on is one of those, I must say I shall most definitely be using again.
I have always loved walking through the woods to see the Bluebells once they come out so this was my inspiration of that, they have always been one of my favourite flowers since I was a child and they bring back lots of happy childhood memories and they have the most gorgeous scent too lol!

I started with a piece of Sheena White Stamping card cut to size then I stamped Sheena Floral Fantasy Bluebells & Daffodils stamp just once with Black Stazon and painted over it with Pebeo Drawing Gum, once dry, which only takes a couple of minutes, I then proceeded to stamp the Bluebells twice more each time painting with drawing gum. So in all I stamped the Bluebells three times. I was happy with that amount but you could do more.

I then took the Yellows and Greens from the Aquatints Bright & Beautiful and Pastel sets and the Blue from the Pastel set. I painted the sky in with the Blue first followed by the Pastel Yellow, B & B Yellow, Pastel Green and finally the B & B Green at the bottom, I then brushed a wet paint brush over to blend the colours together and dry with a heat gun.

For the background I love this little stamp from Sheena's Perfect partners Enjoy the Silence, I have used this many times, as if you did not know already lol! I think its lovely for scenes as it shows perspective and depth of field. So I stamped the little trees on the hill in the background so the branches were over the sky area, this stamp gives a wide print of the ground area but as I still had the drawing gum on my Bluebells that did not matter as once the gum was removed the trees would be behind the Bluebells. I mixed a little Yellow & Green from the B & B set of Aquatints and painted over the trees lightly.

With a little of the Green from the Bright & Beautiful set I painted over the Grass stamp from Sheena's Enjoy The Silence stamp set and stamped the grasses in three places, one being right over to the left so it would look behind the Bluebells. If you find the Aquatint is too runny just clean the stamp then go over the stamped image again with no ink on the stamp and this removes some of the ink but leaves the image. 

Now I removed the Drawing Gum by rubbing it off gently a bit at a time making sure it was all off. I then mixed a little Green & Light Brown from Aquatints Landscape set to make a darker Green to paint the leaves of the Bluebells with, if you go over the edge of the stamp at all just faux bleach it with a little water and dab it dry with some kitchen towel straight away and this will remove the excess paint, this should work with Aquatints or Distress inks as they are both water based. I repainted the areas of the leaves I wanted to look a little darker to add some depth. I then took the Purple from the Bright & Beautiful set of aquatints and painted the flowers, I know they are 'Blue'bells and I could have painted them with the lovely Blue but real Bluebells are a more of Purple colour so I went with the Purple. I did paint over the top of the flower heads again to make them darker but I was not getting the depth I wanted so I then went over  the flowers with Spectrum Noir Professional Colouring Pencils just in the areas I wanted darkened, I was quite pleased with the results this gave.

To finish the card I added a sentiment from Creative Expressions John Lockwood Daisy Chain Elements stamp set along with the Happy Birthday sentiment from the same set with Black Stazon.

I mounted it onto Black Card then onto my base card, there you have the completed card. I hope you like it as much as I do?

I am entering this into http://anythingbutcutechallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/challenge-12-april-earth-day.html

http://countryviewchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/april-challenge-spring.html

http://thatscraftychallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/all-things-bright-and-beautiful.html

Thank you for looking, Jacquie xxx