White Wash Technique with Secret Garden

I was recently reminded of a cool technique called whitewashing -- which, not surprisingly, involves watercoloring with reinker over an image that has been "whitewashed" with white craft/pigment ink. If you'd like to see a video of this technique, Lisa Curcio has one posted here. This is just one in a series of videos she's making to showcase various techniques -- all well worth watching.

I used the same stamp set Lisa used, Secret Garden by Stampin' Up!  Three of the flower images in this beautiful set are open lined and thus lend themselves to this technique quite easily.  Another set that I think would work quite well is SU!'s retired Fifth Avenue Floral which has a rose, a lily, and at least one other open-lined flower in it.

I made four cards all pretty much the same except for the colors.  I did my embossing and whitewashing on Crumb Cake cardstock, and then worked with Bermuda Bay, Elegant Eggplant, Night of Navy, and (my favorite In Color) Strawberry Slush.  Here they are:

(If you'd like to see a larger view of the cards, just click on the pictures.)

The background was done with the new Mosaic embossing folder, and I used the new Ovals framelits to cut out the Crumb Cake and Whisper White layers. I did the paper piercing with a template from the Occasions Paper Piercing Pack.  The butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch that I just couldn't resist adding, although I could have used either of Stampin' Up!'s butterfly punches or a butterfly from the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die as well.  (I just love having choices!)  I can't remember offhand which set the sentiment is from, but I'll be happy to look it up if you leave me a comment requesting that info.  I used twelve Stampin' Dimensionals on each card, but I think it's worth it -- more so when you see the cards in real life.  I'm pretty tickled with how these cards turned out!

Now to see what I can get into next...

Smiles,

Joyce Spear (a.k.a. StamperJoyce)