Out of my comfort zone!

Hello! Erica back on the blog today with a card that's completely out of my comfort zone colour scheme-wise. I had several 'yikes' moments while colouring this one!

Purple is one of those colours that I'm not a fan of personally, I can't wear it without looking like I'm on my way to my own funeral. It sucks any rosiness right out of my face and I look pale and grey. Not the best of look, is it? I'm not that good at using purples when it comes to colouring either but this year I'm making an effort to step out of my comfort zone and trying things I tend to stay clear of. It can be a painful process and often my husband will know when I'm doing it as instead of a serene and happy wife colouring away, he has a grumpy and grunting red-faced grizzly bear impersonator..!

This card was no different but I think it turned out very pretty in the end as I kept working on it for a couple of days without throwing it in the bin (this is huge progress for me) I ended up turning it into a card for an 18th birthday and this particular young lady is very artistic herself so it couldn't be any old thing, so yeah, no pressure eh??

Taking the Splendid Roses stamp I stamped it all over an A2 sized copic friendly piece of card stock, with lots of help from several masks I had already cut out. I keep my masks with the stamp set they belong to for easy use, it makes life very easy when you need one for a project so don't throw them out when you are done.

Very hesitantly I got my purple and lilac Copic markers out and started colouring. I wanted a quite dark and gothic look to the flowers and kind of jumped in the deep end! I tend to keep a little piece of paper on the side where I can try out different colour combinations and see how the colours look when they overlap and this was very helpful for this colouring as I'm not overly confident with purples as mentioned before. The smaller buds I used soft lilacs for, to make sure they stood out a little bit too and didn't disappeared with all the dark purples. I'm not joking when I say that I was sweating from nerves during this colouring... so that makes colouring cardio, right?

For the leaves I used cool greys and dotted them generously with both black and a darker shade of cool grey. While I was on a roll with the dotting, I did the same on the smaller flower heads too but with a colourless blender instead of a colour.

All around this big bouquet of flowers I started adding a shadow of soft lilac and using a C00 Copic marker I blended some of the colour out around the edges and the bottom. I didn't really know how this was going to turn out but I went for it anyway and I like it! Phew, right?? Aaaaaaand I had to add more dots in this shadowed area too which I did with a couple of cool greys.

As this was for Georgia's 18th birthday I wanted to have both her name and the age on the card and using some letter and number die cuts from My Favorite Things I cut the required bits out in silver metallic card stock and glitter card stock. Playing around with the panel and the diecuts I placed the sentiment where I needed it but the 'birthday' bit was in the way. Now, I could have masked this off but instead I cut it off. I have never before cut up a stamp. Ever. EVER.  *ooooooh, what a rebel I am*

Before I stamped the sentiment with VersaMark ink, I dusted the panel with my anti-static tool to make sure no stray bits of embossing powder ended up all over my card. Once the embossing powder was set and cooled down, I glued all the letters and numbers on. Now, some people would have stopped here but not me. No, ma'am! Sequins from Moonbeams got added, rather generously too as it is for a special birthday. Some people would now sit back and say 'yes, that will do nicely' but not me. Nope. Why not go to town if you can?? Hmm? Grabbing a bottle of lilac Nuevo drops (the transparent kind) I added this in little droplets all over the big roses, kind of like dew drops.

After doing the Nuvo drops thing I had to set it aside to let it dry and then finally decided that it was done. I mean, what else could I possibly have added at this point, right?

Well, hopefully Georgia will like her card and I hope you do too. If I have inspired you to step out of your own crafty comfort zone I'll be very happy but I don't blame you if you don't, I have rarely stressed so much over a card as I did this one, simply because of the colour choice. Purple isn't my friend but after seeing what I can possibly achieve by sticking to it, I might try it again sooner rather than later. But the next card is quite likely going to be pink...  

Happy crafting and see you next time!

Erica

Love and Laughter,