Hello! I’ve been chatting about AALL & Create stamps and stencils quite a bit this month, as it was the featured company for White Rose Crafts. But in addition, I just plain love the brand! So many cool and fantastical images, along with many other styles….I hope to add to my collection very soon. When I had first seen the Voyager stamp set, I knew I had to have it. It’s just gorgeous. The details and imagery is right up my alley. I am just crazy about the larger of the 2 main stamps, as it has beautiful peonies as well as planets and graphic lines. I wanted to color it immediately.
I decided for my first go at it, I’d heat emboss the outline in gold and then color it in with my Zig Clean Color Markers. Black would have been fine, but there’s something so cool about the shiny gold embossing powder. You’ve got to make sure you use a detail powder for this one. I used Stampendous‘.
I knew right away that the peonies had to have a coral tone to them, and that I wanted that “sky” behind them to be a deep blue. Everything else was open. I decided my colors as I went along, realizing that I kept my palette mostly muted (for my typical style) with the exception of a few pops of teal.
It took a while. I did not want to rush this. If I got stuck on a color, I left the panel for a while until I figured out the right color. I don’t usually take so long with coloring, but this felt important to me. And I am so glad I didn’t hurry the process along. When all was said and done, I decided to not turn this into a card, but rather a piece that I’ll hang in my craft room. I wanted to mount it on black cardstock, but I felt like the panel needed something else. So I took my T-Ruler and a Spectrum Noir metallic marker in Bronze, and added a very thin line around the edges. I had considered using embossing powder, but I wanted that line really crisp, and I didn’t trust myself to be able to do it without screwing up all of the hard work I had already done. And in the end, the flat, yet metallic, line was just what the piece needed.
I know I went on and on about a piece that really is just heat embossed and colored, but I treated it like art. Not just crafting. There’s always been a bit of a difference between the two in my mind, but here I tried to get the two to come together. I love this stamp so much, and i can’t wait to color it again, using completely different colors and mediums. Check out the entire assortment of AALL & Create products that White Rose Crafts currently has, and use my coupon code, “Alison15.” Thanks so much for stopping by….and reading this far into the post! Have an inspiring day!
Beautiful