Papertrey Ink June 2017 Blog Hop Challenge

Today is the June 2017 Papertrey Ink Blog Hop where all the Papertrey customers get to share our creations with everyone. Nichole selected the image on the left for us to be our inspiration this month. The particular thing she liked about this is the perfectly executed ombre in these two vases. I used them directly as my inspiration by creating an Ombre Background using my Reinkers as watercolors.  I was a bit surprised about the turn out of this background panel as I haven't tried actually painting one before. I normally do a bit of ink blending with a lot of shimmer mist to get the color moving.  Because I was going for a linear look, I had to use an actual paintbrush this time.

I started by wetting the watercolor paper on both the front and the back.  This keeps your water color paper from moving around and helps to decrease how much warping there is since the back and front dry at the same time.  It's a cool trick I learned from Lydia Evans.

For some reason, I didn't look at the inspiration photo before I started working on my card this morning. Rather than pink and teal ombre, mine is a soft pink (Sweet Blush) panel from the top to the center of the panel. And then a brownish grey (Soft Stone) from the bottom to the center with the lightest shades of each color meeting in the middle.  I didn't know if this was going to work out or not, but I wanted to try it and the image on the right is the background panel attached to the card base before the bouquet was added.  It turned out exactly as I had pictured it.  I also splattered Gold Watercolor Paint for added texture and some shine.  Once everything was dry, I die cut the panel with an MFT Blueprint 15 Stitched Rectangle Die.  I am happy that I finally have a stitched rectangle in all 3 of the sizes that I like to use. My WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Die has a full 4.25 x 5.5 in Stitched Rectangle, MFT Blueprint 15 has 4.125 x 5.375 Stitched Rectangle and Simon Says Stamp has the 4 x 5.25 size.  For me, I'm going to use use one of those 3 with pretty much every card I create.  Each of these sets comes with several sizes of dies that will also be used from time to time.  But these three are my go to dies for cutting out my background panels because at least 75% of the time, my background panel is done on Watercolor Paper rather than card stock.

My rinse water had a touch of pink in it so I mixed that with the Soft Stone and felt it gave the grey color a warmer look.  I like it and it was exactly what I had in mind.  The next part for me was figuring out which stamp set to use with this card.  I started with Brushed Blooms but ended up liking the way Fresh Bouquet looked with the background panel.  For me, the difference is that Fresh Bouquet comes with an outline stamp that I can heat emboss which helps the bouquet to stand out from the background and define it more.

Using my MISTI tool with a die cut negative (which acts like a place holder), I stamped the largest bloom in Sweet Blush and the bigger blooms in Pale Peony. I used Soft Stone to stamp all of the leaves and Berry Sorbet for the berries.  I used Thin 3D Foam Squares to attach the bouquet to the card base. I stamped a greeting from Botanical Blocks onto the banner from Tag Sale Quilted Dies using Versamark with Antique Gold Embossing Powder.

There's sure to be lots of fantastic projects for the blog hop this month and I enjoy seeing everyone's take on the inspiration.  Be sure to stop over at the Papertrey Ink Blog to see all of the linked up projects.