Creative Expressions Calling Card Challenge

1. Using cream acrylic paint cover a 14” x 10” canvas.  You may need to apply two or three coats of paint to ensure that the canvas is covered.  Using tea dye and vintage photo distress ink, over stamp the acrylic paint using script and crackle stamps to give some interest to the background; I used  Creative Expressions ‘Texture’ stamps.

2. Put tissue tape around the edges of the canvas and colour slightly by rubbing this over with tea dye distress ink; distress ink can be applied using a blending tool or cut and dry foam.  Then stamp some swirls (Ecogreen Crafts ‘Embellishing Flourishes’) onto the tissue tape edging overlapping onto the canvas in some places using tea dye distress ink.

3.With the swirl stamp inked ready with Versamark Watermark Stamp Pad, triple emboss the corners of the canvas with blue embossing UTEE (Blonde Moments ‘Savoury Sky’) and stamp into the UTEE while still hot with the swirl stamp.  Once this has cooled, rub Inca Gold (Blue - 914) into the stamped area; this highlights the stamped image.

4. The bouquet of flowers is made from various layers of flowers assembled together.  The flowers are made using various techniques:

1. Metal flowers: Colour a silver coloured metal sheet (from Ten Seconds Studio) using alchohol inks (Stream and Stonewashed).  Cut flower shapes out of this sheet using the Cuttlebug and flower dies (Paper Artsy ‘Grunge Flowers’ and ‘Grunge Flowers No. 2 & 3’).  The flowers were edged using a Metal Roller Texture Tool.
2. Grunge paper flowers: Cut flowers from grunge paper using the Tattered Floral Die (Tim Holtz) and colour with distress ink (weathered wood and tumbled glass) using a blending tool or cut and dry foam.  Stamp over some of the flowers using the swirl stamp using Ancient Page Ink.
3. Kraft Glassine flowers: Cut flowers from kraft glassine using the Tattered Floral Die again.  Scrunch some of these up so that they are well creased, unfold and then apply mica powder/ perfect pearls.  Heat very quickly with a heat gun so that the mica powder is absorbed by the kraft glassine’s coating. Stamp the remainder of the kraft glassine flowers using various script stamps in black ink (I used script stamps from Tim Holtz ‘Mini Ornates’ and Paper Artsy ‘Hot Picks 1006’).  Again heat these flowers quickly so that the ink is absorbed into the kraft glassine’s coating.

Assemble the layers of the flowers in different combinations and stick a button in the centre or a brad; I used glossy accent for the sticking.

5. Spray some string with Adirondack Colour Wash ‘Meadow’, dry and plait; these will be the stems of the bouquet. Tie a ribbon around the string to give the appearance of a hand tied bouquet.  This ribbon is made out of two pieces of Tissue Tape stuck together and coloured with vintage photo and sprayed lightly with Perfect Pearls Mist ‘Heirloom Gold’.

6. Cut ‘Elegant Flourshes’ (Tim Holtz Die) out of grunge paper and colour with bundled sage distress ink and spray lightly with the Perfect Pearls Mist; these will be the ‘sprigs’ dotted throughout the bouquet.  

7. Assemble the ‘stems’ and the flowers on the canvas and stick down using glossy accents.

8. For the Calling Card, stamp (with Versamark) script text (Tim Holtz stamp) onto an ATC and emboss using clear embossing powder.  Once cool, apply weathered wood distress ink all over the card and vintage photo around the edges.  Put a piece of paper over the card and apply a medium hot iron to this piece of scrap paper and iron over the ATC.  The embossing powder melts and is removed from the ATC when the paper is removed.  

Stamp a greeting on the ATC; I stamped “Flowers by tmw” - tmw are my intials!  Stamp the swirl around the edges and finish off by applying a metal flower and leaf embellishment coloured with alcohol inks.  Affix to the ‘hand tied bouquet’ with a Tim Holtz Memo Pin.