Tulips, tulips everywhere

Today I thought I would share another little project that I made using my new stamps. I have always loved tulips and thought it would be nice to make something with a springtime feel about it as the weather forecast for this weekend in the UK is really not that great...turning very cold again!!!!

To start, I grabbed a 15cm square Artemio frame, a piece of Thorndon Hall paper cut to fit the niche and  Vanilla and Guacamole Fresco Finish paint.

I watered down a little Vanilla paint before washing over the Thorndon Hall paper and set this aside to dry while I painted my frame. I base-coated the frame with Vanilla and dried it thoroughly with my heat gun before dry brushing a layer of Guacamole over the top.


To define the edges of the frame, I dry brushed a small amount of Mud Splat, this is such a useful colour, it's very neutral......works with everything!!! I then used a bit of Claudine Hellmuth's Matt Medium to stick my painted paper firmly inside the niche.

 

I also used Mud Splat to print some text on the frame, I chose the calender stamp from Sara Nauman's ESN06 and the text from ESN03. I just wanted a hint of text on the frame, nothing too over powering as another layer will be added later.

 

 

 

At this point, I felt that the project wasn't really very warm looking.....in fact I felt it was decidedly cool so I decided to add a smidge of Autumn Fire around the edges to warm things up a bit. This is a great colour for adding warmth, it's also translucent so you can still see everything that is underneath it. I also added some washi tape around the edge of the frame......I'm really quite partial to a bit of washi tape!!!

 

 

Now for the flowers! I used Haystack, Pumpkin Soup, Autumn Fire and Claret for the head of the tulip, layering the paint on the stamp in that order and for the leaves & stem, I used Honey Dew, Hey Pesto and Green Olives then printed the image on black cardstock.

 

 

When dry, snip apart the tulip as shown below.

 

 

I used some strong double sided sticky tape to stick a small piece of lace along each edge before mounting and re-assembling the tulip on the edge of my frame with some foam sticky pads.

 

 

Smaller tulips:

I used the Matt Medium to stick some book pages to some card stock, this gives the flimsy paper a more substantial backing. and used this to print a number of solid tulips. For each of these tulips, I printed a second image so that I have an extra centre panel for each flower. I used the same colour paints as for the large tulip.

 

 

In order to make these flowers jump out from the niche, I stuck both the complete flower and the centre panels on black card and trimmed them with a narrow border and curled the centre panels forward for a bit of dimension and movement.

Now all these lovely flowers need stems, so repeating the layering of paint technique of the big tulip, I stamped several stems on black cardstock and cut them out.

You will find that they are way too long and you will not have much room for may leaves. I found it easier to stick all the stems and flower heads in first and then added a few leaves here and there to fill the gaps. It also looks better if some of the leaves are behind and in front of the stems. Foam sticky pads are great for this.

The finishing touches:
I stamped Flora and Fauna on a piece of Washi Tape and placed it in the back of the niche using Rangers Black Archival ink. I also stamped "The Beauty of a Garden" and "Art in Bloom" with same ink but this time, I stamped directly on the wooden frame.

Then it was time to rummage around for embellishments. I used a selection of paper flowers and odds & ends that were laying around on my desk from previous projects (must learn to put stuff away!!) to add the finishing touches.

As well as the stores listed in my previous tutorial, my stamps are also now available from:

The Stamp Attic

Birds in the Barn

                                               


                                               


                                               

I hope this little project inspires you to have a play and make something with a springtime feel about it to try and wash away the winter gloom.

Have a fun and creative weekend,
Lin