Beautiful Backgrounds by Natalie

 

You will need Not More Flowers and Making More Marks for this card. You will also need a piece of printed paper suitable for stamping on, ideally in a square format. You will also need: white card, A5 card blank and a piece of chocolate coloured card. You will also need distress inks and a paintbrush.

The background

Select your printed paper for texture but try to choose a neutral design with little contrast. Crop the paper, if needed, into a square. Using a stamp platform, insert your chosen paper up against a corner. Align your first leaf stamp so the image is positioned vertically and aligned centrally to your paper. Stamp this first image in Walnut Stain Distress Ink. Rotate your paper 90 degrees and stamp again; repeat for all sides. Blend any excess ink using a slightly damp paintbrush.

For the next image, align the stamp diagonally towards a corner. Stamp this image in Peeled Paint using the same technique as the first image.

Use another leaf design (or one you have already used but upside down) to infill using Saltwater Taffy Distress Ink.

Once your panel is dry, you can ink blend around the edges using the same colours to pull out more detail from your background or add lighter stamped images for added interest.

The card

Stamp your circle image onto your white card in brown ink and align and stamp your sentiment centrally. Using the string like image from Making More Marks, stamp in green ink. I really love this stamp for adding texture without having to worry about adhesion methods for fibres.

You can then cut out the circle and adhere it to your background panel directly, or add more depth with extra cardstock layers beneath.

The panel is then mounted onto chocolate card with a thin border to the top, right and bottom edges. Mount this onto your card blank as preferred and the trim the left hand edge of the chocolate card accordingly.