Blooming Canvas

Hi everyone.  My name is Steph Ackerman and I am thrilled to be guest designing this month for Eclectic Paperie.  This store is full of amazing products and I had a hard time deciding exactly what I wanted to work with.    I knew I wanted to create a  canvas, but I had no idea exactly what I was going to do with the canvas.    I generally have no idea what I'm going to create, so I just pulled out some supplies and played around.  After all, isn't that what creating is all about?

I selected  Wendy Vecchi's  Stamp It Stencil It - In Full Bloom - to work with.  I love stamps and I love stencils so seeing them working in harmony was going to be fun.  I stamped the leaves along the side of the canvas first in ColorBox Limelight Ink, then added the flowers with ColorBox Berry Ink.  Since I wanted to work on my canvas without waiting for it to dry, I used a Ranger Heat It Craft Tool.  This way I could dry my elements and continue to work.

I stamped the flowers in black ink on top and as you can see, I didn't get a wonderful impression.  Honestly, I was ok with it because I knew I wanted some dimension and would "fix" this issue later on.

 

After stamping the 3 flowers, I created masks of the flowers so I could add 2 additional flowers between them. 

 

 

Then as I wanted the flowers to be 3 dimensional, I stamped, colored and fussy cut 5 flowers.  I placed Glue Dots between the flower layers for a little dimension. 

 

 

Some Robin's Nest Dew Drops finished off the centers of each flower.  I used Claudine Hellmuth Gesso to adhere torn strips of book paper to the canvas before spritzing with Art Anthology Patience.  It dries very quickly and I was able to add color around the outside of the canvas using the Inkssentials Foam Blending Tool, with Ranger Distress Ink in Worn Lipstick and Tattered Rose .  I probably should have added the book pages before I began my project, but a work in progress takes on a life of it's own, doesn't it? 

 

 

       

I loved the Prima doll stamps when I first saw them.  While a little big for cards, I love how well they work with a canvas.  I used Pocket Doll, fussy cutting her as well as the dress.  I redressed her before adding her to the canvas with foam adhesives for dimension.  A little ink in her hair and headband and she look lovely amongst the flowers.

 

 

I had some tiny stickers in my stash and used them to provide the phrase - "stop and smell the flowers" which I placed around my gal.

Here is a close up of the gorgeous flowers.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy this canvas as much as I did creating it.

Thanks so much to Kim and Bonnie for inviting me here this month and thank you for stopping by today.

Steph