After yesterday’s Christmas card I thought I’d better change season, at least for a while. So for today’s simple Sunday project I decided to go back to an old but fun technique that involves absolutely no stamping. All I needed was some Designer Series Paper (DSP) and Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. Stampin’ Up! understands how relaxing it is to just sit and colour, and has made that really easy with paper packs like Perfectly Penciled. But today it was a sheet in the Abigail Rose DSP that caught my eye.

ABIGAIL TULIP?

I don’t know why they named the DSP pack Abigail Rose, but it definitely sounds nicer than Abigail Tulip! Still I was really happy to see this pattern in the pack and love the writing detail on the dark background. As you can see from the photo above the tulips themselves were left white, almost as an open invitation to make them my own. Who was I to refuse?

So for the leaves I used Granny Apple Green Stampin’ Blends. I didn’t really need to think about light and shade as the designer had added shading to the flowers. So I used the darker maker on the shaded areas and then went over the entire leaf with the light marker.

For the tulip heads I wanted something quite different and with a rainbow of colours to choose from I opted for a bright red and yellow combination. This is one I see a lot in gardens and I’m always struck by how pretty they look. So I started with a dark Poppy Parade Stampin’ Blends on the shaded areas of the petals. Then from there I added some light Poppy Parade coming up from the base of each petal, but not all the way. Then I went over the entire petal with dark Daffodil Delight. This turned the light Poppy Parade areas more orangey which was simply perfect.

Finally I coloured the centres of the three open flowers with a light Basic Black which completely obliterated the detail! Panicking just a little I grabbed my Stampin’ Blends Color Lifter and quickly removed some of the black ink. Then after leaving it to dry for a minute or two I went over the same area with the dark Daffodil Delight. Although not all of the black had been removed I quite liked the result of my ‘correction’. All I need to do now was make a project with this 2″ x 5-1/2″ strip of hand coloured paper.

First I fixed the DSP to a 2″ x 5-1/2″ strip of Very Vanilla Card using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow). Then I measured the middle of the top edge and marked it with a pencil. With that done I slid the strip under the ribbon slot option of the Very Best Trio Punch. After turning the punch over so I could line up the pencil mark with the centre of the hole I pressed down on the punch.

To finish I cut 6″ of gold 3/8″ Shimmer Ribbon and threaded it though the slot. Then I cut 6″ of Very Vanilla twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack and tied it around the ribbon in a simple bow. Project complete.

Oh my goodness I absolutely love this bookmark, especially the way the hand-coloured sections stand out against that darker background. Now I want to make some more. I may even check out a garden bulb catalogue online for some new colour combination ideas…

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