TTPH - IndigoBlu Challenge - Bloomin' Great

This week @ Through the Purple Haze Challenges was Team A's turn (and I'm a B player) but... as it was an IndigoBlu challenge and we had the chance to work with some real stamps - everyone wanted to join in!!

IndigoBlu is one of my favourite crafty brands. I love the designs of their stamps. Distressed, delicate and just utterly gorgeous.

So, with more of us joining in with the same challenge this week, is was going to be a good one.

I received the IndigoBlu "Bloomin' Great" stamp set 

and here is my creation. 

When these gorgeous stamps landed on my doorstep my first thought was wooooohooooo!!! However, the noise that came out of my mouth - only dogs could here!!!!

My mind started ticking. I left making a start on the challenge for a couple of days as I had so many ideas, I couldn't decide which ones to try!
I had a list of things I wanted to do...
* I wanted to do something different than a card.
* Lately, I seem to reach for the 8 X 8 card stock so wanted to do something bigger.
* I wanted a simple but striking colour palette....

I decided on a wall hanging. I could imaging this on a lovely painted garden shed.....

IndigoBlu has a kind of vintagey, distressed feel to their stamps so wanted to chose suitable colours and stick to a minimal colour palette.

I chose to work with my Distress Inks and picked Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Vintage Photo, Old Paper and Peeled Paint to play with.

I also wanted to give it a watercolour painted feel so chose to work on watercolour 300gsm card stock. 

To start with, I stamped the large flower on to watercolour card twelve times with black Archival Ink.  I coloured it with the Broken China and Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink using a waterbrush. 

I then stamped ten of the large leaf stamp on to watercolour card using black 'Ink It Up' Ink. I then heat embossed it using gold 'Heat it up' embossing powder.

I coloured the leaves with a waterbrush and Old Paper Distress ink and went over the centre of the leaves with Vintage Photo Distress ink. 

I then stamped the large plaque stamp on to the card and again heat embossed it with the gold embossing powder. 

I tore the edges around the design and coloured it with the range of Distress Inks I was using. I stamped the sentiment in the center, at an angle of the plaque using the 'You're Bloomin' Great' stamp but only used the "Bloomin'" part of the stamp. 

For the background, I wanted to use something large and easy to manipulate. I decided to use cardboard. I peeled the top layer of the cardboard off so the corregated part was showing. I painted the cardboard with an olive coloured emulsion paint, then painted over the top, with teal coloured emulsion. I then randomly inked over the top with gold ink.

When the paint dried, I adhered the plaque to the bottom of the background. I then arranged the flowers at the top. I overlaid two flowers on top of each other, but put a wash of Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the bottom layer. 

I tied little knots of teal coloured ribbon and arranged them in between the flowers.

 Then added porcelain butterfly beads. 

To finish, I put two holes in the top and tied gold rope ribbon in a triple knot to hold. I also added a length of the rope ribbon with a triple knot at each end to the bottom to mirror the rope at the top. 

Ingredients for my creation

* IndigoBlu "Bloomin' Great" stamp set
* Waterco1our card stock 300gsm
* Black Archival Ink
* Black 'Ink It Up!' ink
* Gold 'Heat It Up!' embossing powder
* Distress Inks - Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Vintage Photo, Old Paper, Peeled Paint.
* Gold Versacolour ink
* Waterbrush
* Teal coloured ribbon
* Gold rope ribbon
* Glue gel


I loved, loved, loved participating in this challenge, although I did have to 'swap' teams for the week!! (We have a healthy team A v's team B battle going on!! Ha Ha)

Having the chance to work with some rubber stamps and them being part of the fabulous IndigoBlu range.... It's been a good week...

Hope you like this recent creation, would love for you to leave me a comment. 

Hope to see you soon, toodles for now. 

Lisa xxx