Plaster Inspired Flowers

Audrie (aka girlgeek101) over at SCS runs the Inspiration Challenges and has a real knack for picking great Pinterest boards or websites to give us inspiration for a card.  Last week's was this great Plaster Art board.  One of my grandfathers was a decorative plasterer back in London between the world wars so I was really drawn to the challenge.

I chose this image for my inspiration:

I knew exactly the stencil I had that would reflect the spray of flowers and thought that brushos could mimic the splashes of colour.  Easier thought of than accomplished though!!

It was harder to create what I had in my mind than I expected. I made four attempts, two on watercolour paper and two on coated cardstock and experimenting with whether brushos or watercolour paints gave a better effect.

The first one I turned into a card was this version using coated cs and brushos, but tinkered with a fair bit as the original result was much too pale:

I stenciled the flower with pearlescent paste (a mistake there - I decided in hindsight that a plain white paste would have suited my inspiration image better), then when dry, I sprinkled bits of red, blue, and yellow brushos around the image, spritzed with water until I got the colours very pale. Problem was they dried too pale and there was very little colour. 

But I came back to it and took some Distress inks, pressed them on an acrylic block, watered them down, and then painted over the brushos to intensify some of the colour.

Stamped the sentiment, scored the lines, and added some sequins for interest. Popped it up on fun foam for dimension. Phew - finally a card I was reasonably happy with!!

I did end up with a second card from all of my attempts:

This version is one of my watercolour paper attempts using brushos. I stenciled the flower with pearlescent paste, then when dry, I sprinkled bits of red, blue, and yellow brushos around the image, spritzed with water until I thought I had got the colours very pale. Problem was they dried way too dark and it looked horrible and gaudy.  I was ready to give up.

But I showed all my other versions to my friends Loll and Christine when we got together to craft, and Loll suggested toning this one down with some white gesso. So I did that and it really worked well.

Added a heat embossed sentiment and rather too many little flower sequins, then popped it up on fun foam.

It was one of those situations where maybe I should have given up, but instead spent far too much time trying to create something I had in my mind!

Supplies:

Stamps - Hero Arts sentiment

Ink - Staz-on black, Distress inks for the first; Versafine Onyx Black for the second

Paper - white cs for the cardbases; coated cs for the first; watercolour paper for the second

Size - A2

Accessories - brushos, Studio 490 Vintage Floral stencil, Dreamweaver Pearlescent paste, fun foam, Scor-buddy on both; irridescent sequins for the first; clear embossing powder, tiny flower sequins for the second