Bunches and bunches

I’ve got something bright and breezy for you today. Even though the flowers on the PB ‘together’ stamp look like agapanthus to me and even though agapanthus do not come in orange or yellow, I chose this colour scheme anyway. The grey days continue here so I’m stamping sunshine instead!

I worked in the stamp positioner so I could add a colour or two at a time and started by inking the centres of the flowers with festive berries, you could use the ink pads or the marker. I used the ink pad and wiped ink off any area where I didn’t want it. Around the festive berries I inked with ripe persimmon ink, spritzed the stamp and stamped on hot pressed watercolour paper. I wiped off the stamp then inked the outside petals in fossilized amber (my current fave yellow), spritzed and stamped again. Spritzing helps the colours blend and helps the ink give more solid coverage.

I inked the leaves in iced spruce because the time has come to hang out with other green inks; forest moss will always be special to me but there are other greens out there that need to be seen! I moved the panel and repeated the stamping to the left and to the right almost filling it with flowers. I added some orange and green splatter then die cut with the ‘PB stitched nested frames’ dies. The sentiment is inked in versafine clair misty morning ink because I thought the grey worked with the iced spruce leaves. The centre panel is popped up on a piece of foam for a bit of extra interest.

As I was choosing my sentiment with the words ‘bunches and bunches’ I was reminded of the word my mother used when she did my hair in two side ponytails. Up until grade 4 she did my hair every morning and it was usually ‘bunchies’! That was our name for the style shown below; I think we reserved the name ‘ponytail’ for just one. Did your mother do your hair in ‘bunchies’, if so what did you call them?

It’s quite the classic shot isn’t it? I guess the photographer told us to do that odd thing with our hands. I was six years old and my dress matched one my mother had.

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