Birthday "Bouquet" card with the Magic Colored Pencil Technique

Hey there! I hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :) We sure did. It's always nice to visit with family when you only get to see them a handful of times a year.

I managed to get all of my tasks completed before we left... with the exception of one card. But that's in the works as we speak. ;) Here's a pic of the one I did manage to get done:


This was for my Mom, who's birthday falls right around Thanksgiving. My Mom is a very traditional woman, with classic, elegant taste, so I decided to go with something floral as the theme. I used her favorite color (monochromatic blues) and favorite flower (daisy) as my inspiration for the card. The flowers and leaves are all individually stamped, colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with Gamsol and a stump. (This is known as the Magic Colored Pencil Technique that was pioneered by the great artist, Debbie Gimbel. It's one of my favorite techniques for coloring in images and I wish I had the time to do it more often!) I cut them all out and arranged them on the card with different thickness pop-dots to give it a real "bouquet" feel. The sentiment was heat embossed and I lightly shaded the background of the flowers with one of my pencils and blended with the stump, leaving the area around the sentiment white. I punched the corners of the white card stock with my Stampin' Up! ticket corner punch (identical to the one I offered in my give-away) and matted it onto dark blue carstock. (I LOVE that new punch!) I used my edge distresser for texture on the edges and added gold brads to the corners. I then matted the whole thing onto gold shimmer card stock, as well as added some gold Stickles to the flower centers to tie in with the other gold accents and give it some sparkle. I set it aside and put together the card's base.

I stamped the Floral background (yes, I said "backgound" WOO HOO - two cards down, eight more to go in my own personal background stamp challenge) with a darker ink onto the lighter blue card stock. That was matted onto the gold shimmer card stock and then again on dark blue card stock, which was adhered to the card base. I then adhered the matted bouquet panel with more pop-dots on to the floral background. To say that I am pleased with how this card turned out would be an understatement. LOL I'm thrilled with how it came out! Even if it did take me FOR-EV-ER. Seriously... you do NOT want to know how long this card took to me to make. ROFL But it was for Mom... and she's always worth it, right? ;)

As you may have noticed, I decided to take a picture of the card instead of scanning it like I normally would. I figured with all of those pop-dots on there, I was not in the mood to deal with the headache of trying to get it to scan right! LOL I've decided that I like taking pics of my cards a lot more than scanning them. When taking a photo, I don't have to be concerned about pop-dots or other 3D embellishments throwing off the scan. Photographing them gives them a more realistic, dimensional look to the card. Like you're right there at my dining room table, looking at it with me. ;) I've decided that I'm going to post my cards this way from now on, and as you can see, I would REALLY appreciate ANY tips you girls who photograph your cards can give me! Quite obviously, I NEED the advice, LOL... pretty please!

Thanks again for reading. I hope you have a wonderful week! :)


SUPPLIES:
Paper - SU! Whisper White, unknown blue, unknown gold
Stamps - SU! "Floral" background and "In Full Bloom" set, sentiment is All Night Media
Ink - VersaMagic Indigo, Memories black
Misc - sponges, Prismas & Gamsol, Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, Perfect Layers, clear EP & heat tool, edge distressing tool, Goldenrod Stickles, antique gold brads and pop dots