PCJ DT Card: Floral Challenge - An Experiment in Vintage

Greetings! My very first DT post for Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge Blog!  (Squee!)

Our first challenge for 2012 is a Floral Challenge – flowers, floral papers or floral embellies. Let’s see your flower power! =)  Up for grabs are a $15 (USD) gift certificate from Nicecrane Designs and 4 stamp sheets from the Sketching Stamper. Check out all the challenge details over at the Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge Blog!

For my card this week I used a sponsor image: one of the vintage Flower Children digital stamps available at Nicecrane Designs. Vintage is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside my comfort zone. These thank you cards last Christmas and this collage birthday card from September are my limited attempts at anything even remotely shabby chic, so I was facing a challenge of my own for this week’s DT card!  I finally came up with this experiment in blue:

It took me quite a while to get this card done. When Lisa sent me the sponsor images, I had NO idea what I was going to do. Actually, I freaked just the tiniest bit… my first card and I was going to fail! Yep, weak moment. LOL So I printed them out and avoided them while I worked on my cow Valentine card. Somehow some seed germinated in my brain and grew while I wasn’t looking. (Sometimes procrastination pays off. LOL) I spent a lot of time playing with techniques and colors and papers, testing and retesting until I came up with something that looked enough like the picture in my head and that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to post. ;)

I started with my background first, using papers from K&Company’s Julianne 12”x12”DP pack. I painted over it with a really thin coat of Distress crackle paint in clear rock candy. Once it dried into some really fine cracks, I rubbed picket fence Distress Stain over it and lightly toweled it off. I sponged the edges of both papers and the cream DCWV cardstock with antique linen and walnut Distress Inks.

Next I printed my digi image onto 24-lb printer paper and colored it with Copics. I used Distress Stain in old paper over the entire image with a little antique linen Stain lightly fingerpainted around the edges. I made my own postcard in Word (sadly I ended up covering that beautiful swirl), printing it on to plain white cardstock and giving it the same Stain treatment along with a sponging of antique linen and walnut DI on the edges.  Postal stamps/sentiment are part of a clear stamp set available at Lili of the Valley.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and I took two of their gold metal corners, coated them in picket fence Distress crackle paint and then rubbed over them with the walnut and antique linen Distress Stains.  Lastly, I added three blue pearls that I colored over lightly with a T3 gray Copic marker.

So there you have it – now it’s your turn!  Join us over at Paper-Crafting Journey and check out the rest of the Design Team’s beautiful floral creations! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

See you soon and happy crafting!
Christy