Simple and elegant poinsettias

Today’s cards show two different looks from the Penny Black ‘Chrismtas poinsettia’ stamp. The first is simple distress ink colouring popped up on a fun polka dot background and the second is a bit more elegant with bold colouring inside a gold embossed image. I stamped this first poinsettia in festive berries and shabby shutters distress inks on hot pressed watercolour paper then blended the ink with water to fill the petals. If I needed extra ink for shadows and depth I picked it up from my glass mat which acted as a palette.

When I inked the stamp I wiped off the festive berries ink from the centre of the stamp so I could add peeled paint ink with a distress marker. After I had done all the blending I coloured the circles in the centre of the flower with a gold gel pen. My favourite part of the card though is the polka dot paper; it is so pretty. It is just one of a series of papers by Alexandra Renke. The Foiled Fox sent me some Alexandra Renke papers to try out and they are lovely. I will share more of them with you in the coming weeks. The weight is between paper and cardstock so it die cuts well but doesn’t add too much bulk when you layer it.

I cut my poinsettias out with the co-ordinating die but they wouldn’t be too hard to cut by hand, especially if you have fussy cutting skills (which I don’t). I matted the polka dot panel in red and added a sentiment from ‘festive snippets’ in versafine crimson red.

I embossed my second poinsettia in gold powder then coloured with zig clean color real brush markers. As I often do I used two reds and two greens, colouring first with the light marker then adding the darker colour at one end before blending with water to fill the petals.

I applied adhesive to a strip of gold cardstock then trimmed it even narrower to position behind the popped up poinsettia. I embossed a sentiment in the same gold embossing powder used for the flower.

I am continuing to participate in Kathy Racoosin’s 30 Day colouring challenge. If you want some colouring inspiration pop over to her blog and check out her tutorials and link up. Let me know if you are participating.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas poinsettia, festive snippets (PB)

Dies: xmas poinsettia cut out (PB)

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, Alexandra Renke pink dots, gold shimmer, red cardstock

Ink: festive berries, shabby shutters distress inks, , versamark, versafine crimson red

Markers: clean color real brush markers, peeled paint distress marker

Also: metallic gold rich embossing powder, glass mat