Guest Post - Holly Spray (or how not to do it!) by Veronica Pell

This is the second week of Veronica's guest spot and this time she is featuring three cards using the Holly Bells stamp set. Enjoy this weeks musings.

This was the stamp I went for immediately as i thought it would go well with brusho inks – BIG mistake! Brushos need a really bold stamp, as I discovered...................

Many  sheets of card later, I finally got an idea I thought might work, stamp the image first, emboss, then thoroughly damp the card before adding the tiniest amount of powder using a very fine brush just where I wanted it............................I really thought I’d cracked it, until the colour started spreading ....and spreading.... spraying with more water and blotting with klitchen roll finally toned down the colours, but the rest of the piece of card was a very splodgy mess. In desperation I trimmed it down fairly close to the image, mounted it onto a red panel, then onto the white 7" x 7" base card, added the greeting.

Back to ‘normal’ it was!

Masked off the panel towards the top of the 7" x 7" card blank, stamped the holly spray with black Versafine and clear embossed. 

Brushed Scattered Straw and Wild Honey Distress inks round the image, then added a line of brown watercolour pencil  under the panel and brushed it with a water brush then replaced the bottom piece of masking paper and added more wild honey.

Coloured the image with water-based marker pens, stamped a greeting using the bold clear stamp and gold embossed along the base of the card.

This is a smaller version on a 6" x 6" card, using Fired Brick and Forest Moss Distress inks, and a smaller clear greeting.

Really appreciate you sharing all of this Veronica, let's face it we've all been there at some time or another. I know our fantastic blog readers will be leaving a comment in support of your wonderful ideas. Don't forget to catch up with Veronica on her blog, Vrons Cards