I love sunflowers and plan to sow a little patch of them this year. The bright yellow or orange flower heads are so cheerful, and they turn to follow the path of the sun. In the autumn I plan to leave them standing so that the birds can harvest the seeds. Any they miss will be picked up by the mice or might even grow into new plants for next year. So for today’s sneak peek I have the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set. This coordinates with the Sunflowers Dies I showed you yesterday.

EMBOSSING FIRST

I have lots of ideas for this stamp set, but for my first project I wanted to stick to traditional colours. My plan was to use water to help the blending process so that influenced how I started.

First I decided to use Shimmery White Card. Unlike Whisper White or Very Vanilla, the surface of the card is not affected by water. So if I don’t want the textured surface of Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper, this is my next option.

Then to help control the water I opted to emboss my chosen images from the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set. I thought that gold would be a great choice as it would compliment my the ink colours.

So to start I used VersaMark ink to stamp the large sunflower image onto a layer of Shimmery White Card. Next I sprinkled it with Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder and tapped off the excess. Then once I’d removed a few stray specks I melted the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

Using the same technique, I stamped and embossed the “thanks a bunch” sentiment from Celebrate Sunflowers below the large flower and set it aside.

On another layer of Shimmery White Card I stamped and embossed the smaller sunflower image across the top right corner. Then I stamped and embossed it on the flap of a Whisper White Medium Envelope.

Finally on some scraps of Shimmery White Card I stamped and embossed three of the single leaves. Now I was ready to start colouring.

STAMPIN’ WRITE MARKERS

For my first Celebrate Sunflowers project I decided to colour using Stampin’ Write Markers. I chose Mango Melody and Granny Apple Green from the Brights collection, and Pumpkin Pie from the Regals. From the Neutrals collection I selected Soft Suede and Mossy Meadow. The only other thing I needed was a water brush with a small amount of clean water in the barrel.

The colouring process was quite simple. I first scribbled a little Pumpkin Pie at the base of the petal using the brush tip of the marker. Then before it had time to really dry I used the water brush to spread the colour to the tip of the petal. Using the same technique I coloured each petal in turn until they were all done. Only then did I pick up the Mango Melody Stampin’ Write Marker and repeat the process on each petal. This time I scribbled a little further up the petal from the base, before blending it out with the water brush.

Once all the petals were done I coloured the three leaves in the same way. I started with Mossy Meadow and added Granny Apple Green as my second colour. Finally I used the Soft Suede Stampin’ Write Marker to colour the flower centre and blended that out too.

At this point I thought you might like to see this process in action so I filmed this short video. You’ll see me working on the smaller flower on the second layer of Shimmery White Card.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

With everything coloured I was finally ready to start putting it together.

I began my using my Paper Trimmer to cut and score some Early Espresso Card. I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create the card base.

Then I turned to the large sunflower and using Paper Snips cut away the card above the top of the flower. Then I fixed the remaining flower and sentiment layer to the card base with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

Next I cut out the three leaves and fixed those to the card base using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow), tucking them under the sunflower.

That just left the layer with the smaller painted sunflower. Using liquid glue I fixed the piece inside the card base and my project was complete.

CELEBRATE SUNFLOWERS

I’m really pleased with how this project turned out and the credit must go to the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set. The images have all the shading built in making it so easy to get great results.

Once the Stampin’ Up! 2020/2021 Annual Catalogue goes live on June 3rd customers will be able to buy this gorgeous stamp set for themselves. The coordinating Sunflowers Dies also goes on sale at the same time. If you want both, make sure you order using the ‘bundle’ item number and you’ll save 10% off the cost of buying them separately.

For a reminder of the Sunflowers Dies see yesterday’s blog post In search of pretty sunflowers.

If you want to save even more why not join Stampin’ Up!? From June 3rd to 30th you’ll be able to choose $165CAD of Stampin’ Up! products, PLUS any stamp and punch or stamp and dies bundle for your starter kit. You’ll get all this for only $135 with free shipping. I’ll have more about this amazing offer in the coming days.

Meanwhile here’s a look at the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set.

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