Thready Roses

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This was made in honour of my crafty santa, Lisa, who was very generous with her crafty Christmas gifts to me. In fact, she's always very generous, bless her! So I used some of them here, and some of my general stash.

I chose a piece of the decorative paper from 'Jenine's Mindful Art Collection' 6"x6" paper pad by Studio Light, and to complement it, I matted it onto a piece of rose gold mirror card, from Tonic Studios 'Craft Perfect' 6"x6" pad, 'Moonlight & Rose'.

I used an old, worn out Chalk Eyes inkpad in dark brown to stamp a faded out script and numbers from Tracy Evans' 'Brush Flower' #234 stamp set from AALL & Create down the right hand side, and the bottom, and used a Versafine Sepia to stamp the main sentiment more boldly, which is from the 'Friendship' stamp #232 by Olga Heldwein, also for AALL & Create.

The numbers die on the left is one of the new standalone dies by AALL & Create..  'Code' #12. I just love it and can see it will be a regular feature on my cards! :-)

The roses are from a stamp #229 and die sets #15 & #16, 'Blooming Fields' by Olga Heldwein, also - you guessed it - from AALL & Create. I don't have them yet, but Lisa sent me some die-cuts with my Christmas gifts. I am totally smitten with these. Also the black & white look. I don't enjoy colouring.. so I am thrilled by this trend! You can produce great results with much less effort!

The roses are raised up slightly on recycled cardboard, and I used a technique I learned from Janet Pring's show for AALL & Create on Hochanda earlier this week, and that is to make an outline for a shadow for the roses by running a black watercolour pencil around the shapes before sticking them down, and use a waterbrush to pull out the shading. It is subtle here, but it's there and works brilliantly.

To finish off, I used Tracy Evans' signature touch with some loose black threads just tucked under the edges of the roses, and allowed to trail loosely, and a few gold sequins.

Can you tell that I am delighted with this one? :-) Thank you, Lisa. xxx