Dauber Colouring & Upcycling

Today is a picture heavy post, so grab yourself a cuppa and a biscuit!  First up is a card made with the 'Botanical Garden' stamp set by Altenew.  I have had this set for a couple few weeks now and it hasn't seen ink in all that time and as I just had to have it at the time (much like everything else I buy), I thought I really ought to use it.

I had an idea that I wanted to try the 'dauber colouring' technique that I have seen a few times on You Tube, as it is a nice quick and easy colouring method that can look quite effective.  So, first off I stamped my images on to a white panel and stamped some of them again on to scrap pieces of white card-stock, because I wanted to layer some of them.

The next thing was to choose my inks.  I chose some soft colours by Memento.  Then I coloured the images very loosely (not even trying to stay inside the lines, as that is not the look I was going for)  all over the flowers, using some slightly darker colours for the centres and fading off more towards the edges.  I wanted to leave some of the images white, so I decided to leave the the leaves uncoloured. 

Then I 'fussy cut' some of the layers from the extra images that I had stamped and coloured, and layered them up on top of the images on the main panel with foam tape for dimension.  I felt that as the colouring was unstructured, it needed that bit of dimension from the layering of the images.

Now, this is where the 'upcycling' comes in.  I had just opened an embossing folder from Taylored Expessions and I liked the soft, apricot/peachy striped packaging so before throwing it away I cut some strips from it and used a couple down the sides of my card base, with more on one side than the other.  Then I mounted the focal panel on to the card base and finished it with three , glittery home made dew drops.  This is my first card (stay tuned, there is a second one after this).

I did all my stamping with my home made stamping tool, here,

It's really a cheap MDF photo frame with a sheet of perspex for the lid and a magnetic sheet in the bottom (it may be crude, but it's effective)

I still had some pieces of the Taylored Expressions packaging left and a card base that I had used the 'stencil monoprint' technique on and decided not to use, so I just grabbed it, stamped a sentiment and stuck a strip across the bottom and the last strip on inside bottom border and tied in the brown sentiment with a thin strip of brown card-stock (although it looks more like black in the photo, but it is brown, I swear) between the patterned piece and the white card base to tie in the brown sentiment.  Again, finishing with three more of the home made 'dew drops'.  Here it is.

If you are still with me I applaud your staying power and thank you all very much indeed for your visits.  I hope it was worth it!  Have a wonderful week my friends, until the next time!  

** Edit **

People have been asking me how I made the 'dew drops', I did put the answer in reply to a comment, but for those of you who don't have the time to read other people's comments (who does?) here are the basics.

I used WOW ‘Melt It Powder’.  It’s from the makers of WOW embossing powders.  You just put it into a foil case (a foil baking case would do, you can buy them from WOW, but suspect they would be cheaper from the grocery store) and you just put your powder in it (whatever amount you want, so there is no measuring involved), then you hold it with a peg/tweezers, anything to protect your fingers and melt it from underneath with your heat tool (don’t do it from the top like I did or you’ll be dusting it off every surface for weeks) ;)   Then, when it’s melted you just drop drops of  it out on to your craft mat/baking sheet and allow to set.  If there are any misshapen ones, just pop them back in the foil container and re-melt it.  It melts very quickly.

 

I added some glitter to some of them, and some were just plain.  I’m going to experiment with colouring some with some Brusho powder too!