Tone on tone with a touch of colour by Natalie

This card uses brown tones and highlights to create contrast throughout this card.

Topper Panel

Grab a piece of Kraft card - I love working on Kraft card as it has so much opportunity for unusual techniques. For this top piece, we are first going to create a textured background using Distress Oxides. Lighter tones will really pop: Antique Linen, Scattered Straw, Spun Sugar, Tumbled Glass as well as Picket Fence can really pop. Lightly brush an edge of your ink pad across the rough side of your card. Once you've applied the ink, mist the card very lightly with water to activate the Oxide. You can use a couple of colours, but do allow to dry between colours.

Stamp your chosen stamp with a permanent ink pad that doesn't smudge with water. Colour your image using gouache based paints rather than watercolours. These are more opaque and need very little water. As you are painting on a darker surface, remember more water means darker rather than lighter. Worth practicing on a scrap to check your colours first.

Background Panel

The background is a textured warm light brown card. This time instead of creating texture with the ink pad, we are going to use the texture of the card itself through our stamping. This means when stamping, you don't want to be pressing so hard. Better to do several light stamps than pressing. Use a good quality ink pad that gives a dense coverage as it will make your stamping easier.

Blend with a dye ink pad that matches the card colour so you get a soft vignette.

Mount the two pieces onto a white card blank.