Flourishes are all the craze now.  You can get flourish stamps by just about every stamp company out there.  I love flourishes!  They can add so much to a piece. 

I get comments on my cards saying “I can’t believe you cut those flourishes out”.  Well I didn’t and today I will show you how to make those flourishes look 3D.

Supplies:  SU Soft Sky card stock, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Faded Jeans, White Gel Pen, SU Not Quite Navy Marker, Sponge.

Stamp Flouish with Faded Jeans Ink on Soft Sky card stock.

I like to make my flourishes come out of the shadows.  Sponge Faded Jeans in a circular motions, starting from the far left of the Cardstock and working in.  You will want it to be a little darker at the edge of the cardstock.

Now to figure out where you want your light source to come from.  The pen on the card stock shows the direction of where I want mine to come from.

Keeping your light source in mind, use your gel pen and highlight the flourish by tracing the right side (light source side) of the flourishes.  This does not have to be exact.

Now to the dark side (starting to sound like Star Wars, lol).

Your shadow is coming from the left side (dark side), in the direction the marker is pointing.

Traced the left side of the flourishes with a Stampin’ Up Night of Navy Marker.

There you have it, 3D looking flourishes.  This is the same technique I used on my Flourished Collage card.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and come away inspired to make your flourishes pop!

Your comments, questions and suggestions are always appreciated.

Well, I’ve went on a little spending spree as you can see.  One of my favorite new places to shop for rubber is Cornish Heritage Farms, here is the link, if you would like to check it out http://www.cornishheritagefarms.com/intro.php?osCsid=dtmnia8l444rr6anm95hm03995

I love realistic stamps and they have them!

Anywhoo, I’ll be spending the morning cataloging my new purchases. 

I keep a large 3″ binder that has page protectors in it and a scanned pic of all my stamps in it.  When I get new Stampin’ Up stamps I scan the sticker sheet before assembling my stamps. 

I keep them organized in the binder by manufacturer.  My Stampin’ Up stamps are alpha order in the binder and the stamps themselves are stored on shelfs in alpa order.

My mind doesn’t do well in an unorganized environment, so I keep my craft room very organized.  I also clean up after each project so I can start anew with a clean slate, so to say.

Have a wonderfully colorful day!

As promised here is the Orange Poppies card  tutorial using the emboss resist technique.

Load your poppies stamp with Versamark first and then with Black ink (all of my inks are Classic Dye inks), stamp poppies on Whisper White card stock and heat emboss using clear embossing powder.

Note:  I have two Versamark Pads, one for this technique and the other, clean one for just stamping Versamark. 

Your pad will get colored ink on it, unless you clean your stamp between stampings.

I keep my clear embossing powder in a plastic sandwich sized container and spoon it on.  Much, much easier than trying to put the powder back in to the little canister container that it comes in.

Color poppies with Summer Sun Marker.

Add Pumpkin Pie Marker at base of flowers.

Color over poppies with Versamark Marker and heat emboss with clear embossing powder.

Now that your flowers are heat embossed they will resist any ink put over them.  I love this technique, it really makes images pop!

Sponge in a circular motion Aqua ink.

I’m asked a lot what kind of sponges I use.   Well I’m cheap, so I buy really big bags of cheap sponges at the dollar store, lol.  Using such cheap sponges allows me to always use a chunk of a fresh one.

Sponge on Summer Sun ink using circular motions.

Dab on Pumpkin Pie ink in splotches.

Stamp poppies over orange and yellow with Pumpkin pie ink.

Color poppies with markers, first with Summer Sun and then add some Pumpkin Pie at the bases of the flowers.  Your just wanting to define them a bit.

Stamp the sprigs using Old Olive ink.

Sponge on right top half Blue Bayou ink.

Sponge on Not Quite Navy ink.

Color in sprigs with Old Olive and Real Red Markers to make them stand out more.

Finish off by sponging on Night of Navy ink.

And here it is ready to assemble.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  I realize it skips around a bit, but that is how my creative process flows. 

Please leave me a comment giving me feed back on this tutorial and also any questions you may have. 

Sneak peek!  This is a card I created this morning and did a tutorial on, but I don’t have time to put it on here this morning before work, so I will put the complete tutorial, with step by step instructions and pictures on this even.  So visit my blog again this evening!

Have a fabulous, colorful day!

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog.  A lot of you have left me some really great comments and well wishes and I so appreciate it!  I’m feeling the love, lol. 

Seriously,  I’ve received a lot of requests for more tutorials, so my plan is to put a new tutorial on this blog each weekend, hopefully Saturday mornings, schedule permitting.  So be sure to check back often and please leave me feed back on tutorials you would like to see.

But for today. . . . . .

This card was created for the February 2008 Dirty Girl challenge.  Every month on the 20th the new and old Dirty Dozen girls (Splitcoaststampers.com Design Team) do a challenge.

This month we were to use a stamp that was designed by a Dirty Girl, past or present.

I used Mona Lisa (Lisa Stahl) designed Cracked Montana Earth Background Stamp.  It can be purchased at    www.cornisheritagefarms.

I combined it with Stampin’ Up All the Best and Season by Season.
The theme was Spring time colors.

Cracked Montana Earth was the only stamp I had on hand to work with on this challenge so I really had to put my thinking cap on. 

If you would like to see all the cards created for this challenge, check this link out:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?si=DCS208&limit=&x=13&y=7

Such talented ladies!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Monalisa (Lisa Stahl) Cornish Heritage Farms Cracked Montana Earth, SU All the Best, SU Season by Season

Paper:  Whisper White, Cool Carribean, Lavendar Lace

 Ink:  SU Taken with Teal, Apricot Appeal, Blue Bayou, Distress Ink Peeled Paint, Adirondack Aqua

Accessories:  Stampin up Markers, Eyelets, Post It Notes, Sponge

Recipe:

Stamped Cracked Montana Earth Backgrounder on lower half of Whisper White Card stock with Adirondack Aqua, brayered Apricot Appeal, Blue Bayou, Taken with Teal on top half of card stock.  Put post it notes along horizon line and sponged Adirondack Aqua at edge of them.  Colored Stamp with markers and huffed on it, then stamped it.  Put a shadow on flower and stem with markers.  Stamped sentiment on each corner with Distress Ink Peeled Paint.  Assembled card and added eyelets.