Mountain Laurel Butterflies

Thanks SO much for all your sweet comments about the Stately Flowers 6 and Birds and Blossoms mix and match I did!  Gina tells me quite  a few of *both* sets were purchased later that day. ;)  I wanted to share another idea I had for combining these two sets, as Theresa's butterflies are sized just right for my mountain laurel bunch!  So here is another mash up, hope it inspires!

I decided to do the "no coloring" method again for stamping and coloring my flowers, but did less shading and kept my strokes looser and less blended for a more water-colored, Impressionistic look.  Stamp the flowers first in Gina K Honey Mustard  (I actually stamped it off to make it even lighter) and then color.  Stamp butterflies over it in Tuxedo Black and color.  Copics: R05, R22, R35 for the flowers and butterflies, and YG11 and G07 for the leaves.  BV02 for the shadow.

Last I stamped this greeting from Carolyn's Stamp it BIG in Gina K Red Hot ink, and then shifted the stamp and stamped again without re-inking (stamping off) to create that peachy color to match the shades in the flowers.  To add some interest, I decided to do a cut away on one side of my rectangle mat and just love how it turned out!  Just going around one side like this, and not cutting up to the actual edge of the image itself makes the card so much more special but isn't as time consuming as fussy cutting the entire thing!

I thought about using red, peach, or black as a card base at first to pick up some of those colors, but my son wandered in and suggested Turquoise Sea* to make it pop, and I have to agree, I love the contrast here, not so matchy-match!  Thanks, Jonathan! :)

If I had to do this card over again, I would stamp on White cardstock, instead of Ivory which you see here.  I just happened to have a piece of ivory on my desk ready to go at the time, AND I thought I was going to keep a warm color scheme.  It still works with the cool Turquoise, but white would be that much sharper/brighter /cleaner.  Just sayin'!

Have a wonderful day!  Gina will be featuring Stately Flowers 6 in her StampTV video on Wednesday (and Birds and Blossoms on Friday) and I can't want to see what she has in store! Glad you are all enjoying the new stamps!

*Well, actually he said "greenish-blue", but that translates to Pure Luxury Turquoise Sea to me!  He's a Gina K fan, too, but does not know all her cardstock colors by name, hee!