Card Control

I'd like to say that again, Seemed like such a great stamp at the time!!  Ever have one of those stamps?  You look at at it and think, wow this is perfect I can do all kinds of cards with this stamp!  Well that is what I thought with this one:
This Stamp is from Stamps happen and called Butterfly and Topiary Tree, I bought it last year and thought it was awesome.  Hum, I was wrong! It is one of the most difficult stamps I have ever worked with!  The stamp and block themselves are top of the line quality, it's a big one 5"x6" and a little hard to handle because of the thickness of the block.  Or maybe it is my hands,  I have large palms and shorter fingers, perfect for picking potatoes and doing commercial sewing, perfect for me, not for the stamp!   I used my speed ball press for the images and that helped me a lot.
First stamps I used basic black by SU, it was boring and flat:
Then I thought I will try braying color on to it: Yellow, Blue, Green, all SU dye inks
That was really bad!
Next, Tim Holtz distress in in Peeled Paint : BLEK

I know, it just keeps getting worse, now I HAD to make this stamp work! Next step various markers,
At this point I have put about 2 hours into this and so far I just have a pile of "trys".  One thing I have been trying is Alcohol markers, before I sink hundreds of dollars into copics I really want to have a sense that I like this form of coloring.  One thing I learned from this card is I really don't like COLORING!!  So I just saved my OC self a bunch of money by not buying copics. DH will be happy to hear that!    This is when it started working:  Firstly I switched to the SU black pigment and heat embossed: Got some "pop" here.

Then back to my old faithful, tried and true Watercolors!  Watercolors, chalk pastels and colored pencils are my favorite old school affordable colorization methods!
Basic water coloring, I love it!!
Here it is the 6 hour Card:





This was supposed to go into a set of cards for a friend, but since I probably spent 6 hours on it, it will be going into my workshops, using it to help newbies understand sometimes you just have to keep trying! Pretty true about life in general! 
Thanks for stopping by, Ginny

Comments

Lori said…
it's still a pretty stamp!
July 10, 2012 at 7:53 AM
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