For this nasturtiums themed birthday card, I used Spellbinders' "Nasturtium and Galvanized Wash Bucket" die set and some Distress Inks to create a one-of-a-kind bucket of goodness. The flower and leaf shaping was done by the help of watching Susan Tierney Cockburn's Youtube video - she's an excellent instructor - and this is the link to her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGyk1JEABjI
First, I used Ranger's Distress Inks in the colors Squeezed Lemonade and Kitsch Flamingo to ink smoosh to separate pieces of watercolor cardstock. I put Squeezed Lemonade ink on my mixed media mat, misted it with a bit of water, swirled it around with my finger tips, then dipped the watercolor cardstock into the ink several times, dried the panel, and continued until I had the look I desired. After that, I did the same thing with the Kitsch Flamingo ink and watercolor cardstock. When both panels were inked and dried, I used the petal dies from the die set and proceeded to cut as many pieces as I could of both the petal dies from the inky panels.
For the leaves, I cut nine sets from a piece of My Favorite Things' "Limelight" cardstock, then ink blended Distress Inks (Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, and Rustic Wilderness) across the die cuts until I had what appeared to be a decent leaf blend. After the Distress Ink dried, I used a Moonlight Gellyroll pen #427 to draw the veins on the leaves then followed Susan's instructions in the video listed above to form the leaves.
For the flower petals, I decided to ink the backs of each petal die cut with the coordinating color of Distress Ink to add color so they wouldn't be white when/if the backs are seen. After that, I used Diarylide Yellow Shade PanPastel and a foam applicator to apply shading to the centers of all the petals - both the pinks and yellows. I continued following the instructions in Susan's Youtube tutorial on the shaping and assembly of the flowers and stamin die cuts. I cut about 20 or so of the flower stamens and once they were assembled (following Susan's instruction video), I dipped them all in glue and then dipped the tops into Woodland Scenics "Yellow Paper Flower Pollen" that I purchased from Spellbinders and set those aside to dry.
I cut the planting container out of a scrap of grey cardstock and applied a generous coating of embossing ink across the entire die cut using the Distress Embossing Dabber. Next, I applied a sporadic layer of Ranger Ink's Antiquities Verdigris embossing powder and Potting Soil embossing powder until the entire die cut was coated. I let the excess fall onto a flattened coffee filter, then melted the embossing powder on the die cut with the heat gun. While the melted embossing powder was still hot, I dabbed portions of the die cut back into the powder on the coffee filter and melted the added embossing powder - I repeated this process until I was happy with the results.
To create my card front panel / background, I used a 5" x 5" piece of dark blue cardstock from my stash and 3D embossed it using Altenew's "Wicker Texture" 3D embossing folder. I put foam adhesive behind the plant container die cut and adhered it to the embossed panel and then began gluing the flowers and leaves on and around the opening of the container onto the card front. After the flowers were adhered, I began adding glue to the flower centers and glued the stamens in place.
My card base was created using a piece of Cardstock Warehouse "Stardream Gold" cardstock cut to 5-1/4" x 10-1/2" that I scored at the 5-1/4" mark. I put Simon Says Stamp's Big Momma foam tape on the back of the embossed panel and adhered it to the card base. My sentiment was created using a scrap piece of brown cardstock and using Spellbinders' "You Are Everything Sentiments" Betterpress plate along with a piece of gold foil that I ran through my Glimmer Foil System. After I die cut the sentiments, I selected the one I wanted to use and adhered it to the card front using thin foam squares.
I hope you enjoyed my Through the Arbor Garden themed card using Susan Tierney-Cockburn's die release.
Until next time... thank you and Happy Making!