Many Mandalas

To be honest, I originally chose the ‘many mandalas’ stamp set for the range of sentiments rather than the mandalas. After taking a closer look I got inspired to stamp with the intricate circular designs and had a happy time creating a panel which I now want to turn into fabric! The stamps in this set are made of very fine lines so you can make very intricate designs with them. The set also has a guide for putting all the separate stamps together to make the intricate mandala you see in the centre of my card. That’s not one stamp; oh no; that is made from five separate stamps one inside another. Yes it is tricky to get them lined up (the guide helps with this) but having them as separate stamps means you can create an unending number of patterns. You can see from my card I have single or double patterns surrounding the central intricate design. Trust me; these stamps are fun.

I stamped my design in versamark but I probably should have gone for a coloured ink (duh!) as I was embossing in gunmetal powder anyway. I stamped the individual mandala circle stamps one at a time on hot pressed watercolour paper and embossed after each stamping. If I had used a coloured pigment ink to see where I had stamped I probably could have stamped several before stopping to emboss with the gunmetal powder. After I’d done all my embossing I sprinkled tangerine, violet and fuchsia colorburst powders over the panel and spritzed with water. I try not to sprinkle too much the first time so I can see where each colour has fallen and then decide if I want to feature a colour in a particular place. You can see from the close up that I did concentrate some areas as violet, some as tangerine and others as a blend. To keep a section as one colour I started moving and adding colour with a paintbrush instead of sprinkling it from the bottle. I used my glass mat as a palette and mixed some of each colour on the mat so I could then paint it into sections on the panel. Once all the painting was done I dried the panel and painted diamond glaze over several of the mandalas. You can probably see a reflective shine on parts of the top two photos, that’s the glaze.

To complete the card I decided to slice the panel into three pieces and pop them up on foam on a white card base. I stamped the sentiment on white too in some versafine clair glamorous ink. Now if there was a way to turn this small panel into a nice big piece of fabric I think I would be making myself something to wear.

Supplies

Stamps: many mandalas (C&9th)

Inks: versamark, glamorous versafine clair
 
Paint: violet, tangerine, fuchsia colorburst powders
  
Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, neenah solar white
 
Also: gunmetal embossing powder, glossy accents