I am loving the new release from Paper Rose.  This Ella’s garden rose set is just so beautiful, and wow, the other ladies on the design team are knocking it out of the park with their cards. I really had to step up my game and come up with a different way to showcase this gorgeous stamp set.

So since I have been on a mixed media art journaling kick I figured I would stick with it and use this beautiful set alongside the Dainty butterfly die in my journal.

I started the page by adding masking tape to the center of the pages; as I learned the paint will seep through onto other pages.  I added gel medium to hold the tape in place.  Once that was dry I went in with my white gesso and applied a thin layer to both pages.  While that was drying I pulled out my paint colours, stamps, stencils, sponges, baby wipes, archival ink and stamp block.  

Once the gesso was dry, I added some colour to the page.  I went in with my largest Dina Wakley paint brush and carnation paint.  I started out with a brush but in the end I just used my fingers to add the next few layers of colour. 

After I was finished applying the carnation I added magenta to most of the page and then went in with blackberry focusing more on the outer portion of the pages.  I ended up doing many layers, going back and forth with the carnation, magenta, blackberry and even adding some blush.  I  applied the paint with my fingers and then went in with a baby wipe to blend and remove some of the colour until I was finally happy with it. 

I really had no plan at all when I was creating.  The only thing I knew for sure were the products I wanted to use.  At first I thought I might stamp the floral image onto some collage paper then added to the layout but decided against it.  Thinking back maybe it would have turned out a bit better had I done that. (Sometimes going with your first instinct is the way to go!)

However, I decided it would be a good idea to stamp the beautiful flora image from Paper Rose directly onto my project using archival ink, even though I usually use a stamping tool to do all my stamping because inevitable I screw up my images otherwise. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened with this.  I did not get a clean stamped image, so I had to be strategic and think of how I could cover up some of my little blunders.  Not easy when you use stark black permanent ink. 

I pulled out a few stencils from my stash as well as some metallic gold paint, white gesso, and some blue distress spray ink.  I used the blue distress stain with my collage stencil from Kaisercraft.  It really added some interest as this stencil had a little bit of lettering and other interesting patterns, such as crosses, lines spatter markings and so much more.  Once the ink had set into the page, I went onto add some stars using some gesso and my blending tool.  Here I felt everything start to come together, as the white gesso just made things POP.  To add just a little shine to the pages I went back in with the Kaisercraft stencil and glint (gold) metallic paint.  It just added that extra element of shin and sparkle.

  I also added some splatter with a sharpie pen, and some watered down black and gold paint.  

To bring it all together and add just a little more gold, (because really, can you ever have too much gold) I edged both pages with that same glint paint.  At this point I had to step back and see if I was really happy, and also to find some things to finish off the page. 

I ended up rummaging through my stash and found some butterfly dies I had previously cut out and not used, as well as the hexagon sentiment that was stamped and stenciled for a previous project.  

I trimmed one of the butterflies so it looked like it was fluttering its wings and glued it down to the bottom of the page.  I left the wing without the adhesive to give it some dimension.  I did the same thing with the full butterfly.  Only adding glue to the body of the die.  I popped up the stenciled hexagon on to a larger white version just to add a little bit more to brighten the page up and tie it all together. 

Just when I thought I was finished I decided to go back in with the Vintage Letter stamp from Paper Rose and some black ink, and just added it in a few spots.  Now I was happy. 

 Well, finally I am finished!  Wow this was long.  Guess I really should learn to do Youtube videos.  What do you think?

My apologies for the length of this blog post, as well as the scatteredness, Its been a few weeks of little to no sleep which is making writing a bit more challenging, Lol!

I do hope you enjoyed it and found some inspiration.  Please come over to our community and show us your own creations! 

Have a wonderful week. 

~ Nancy