Celebrate Sunflowers is featured in my post for our Get Sketchy Stamping Sunday Blog Hop.

Welcome to my blog on this second
Here is the first of our sunflowers to fully bloom.

And here is the sketch we are creating to …. so with these two parameters, I set about creating.

Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set and Sunflowers Dies
I chose to flip the sketch to horizontal … the larger of the sunflower images was just too large to comfortably fit on the card in the vertical mode.

I haven’t quite achieved the same fluorescent colouring as the real thing but I tried using brown colouring for the centre and I lost all detail, so I substituted Evening Evergreen mixed up with Mango Melody for that part of the flower. The petals are Mango Melody. I stamped the sunflowers with Crumb Cake ink onto Fluid 100 Watercolour paper and then watercoloured with Classic inks and a waterbrush. You have to be careful not to flood the images with water or you will lose some of the detail. I also fixed the image a little by heating with the heat tool before I started colouring. This seems to help somewhat in stopping the image from bleeding.

I applied some Evening Evergreen to scraps of Fluid 100 Watercolour Paper and then die cut a heap of the long foliage to pop behind the sunflowers. A little bit of artistic licence here as sunflower leaves are large and fleshy! I also heat embossed the sentiment with White Embossing Powder onto one of the water coloured scraps, and fussy cut.

Once everything was cut out and ready to assemble, I first watercolour washed a layer of Fluid 100 Water Colour Paper with Balmy Blue ink.
The front sunflower and the sentiment are popped up with Stampin’ Dimensionals, everything else is adhered with Multipurpose Liquid Glue.
Smaller sunflowers, keeping the sketch true to layout.
Then I was feeling a little guilty about flipping Sara’s sketch, so I have also created a card in the vertical layout … this time I used the smaller sunflowers from the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set!

This time I stamped the two smaller sunflowers in Black Memento Ink onto Basic White card (thick) and coloured with Stampin’ Blends. Daffodil Delight and Mango Melody for the petals and Light and Dark Soft Succulent for the leaves. I did add a few touches of Evening Evergreen into the centre of the flowers, but just a few dots so as not to cover over the speckled detail.

When colouring the flowers, I coloured the centres with Daffodil Delight Stampin’ Blend first and then added the Soft Succulent ink in light and dark by “dotting” the colour on. You can see in this close up that this gives the centre of the flower lots of texture. I also added some dots of Light Evening Evergreen Stampin’ Blend around the outside of the centre part (I really should look up what this is called), to give more shadow in close to the petals.
You can also see that I added some Soft Succulent to the base of the petals, just to add more shadow. I haven’t done a lot of actual “blending” … these petals are quite small … and that also adds to the texture and shadow in the flower.

I added a few more leaves, easy to colour and die cut. I was trying to keep this card quite simple, however just adding the sentiment left a lot of white space … and I wasn’t comfortable.
So I used the Stamparatus to stamp the sentiment twice with Balmy Blue ink … I used the hinge step technique. This left a gap between the two sentiments which was perfect to add the same sentiment heat embossed with white embossing powder onto a strip of Pacific Point cardstock.

I added the larger sunflower image, stamped with Balmy Blue, around the very outside of the panel, which I thought filled in some of the white space nicely. LOL … can you tell I struggle with white space.
You might be able to see that there is a very light blue shadow around my sunflowers. I actually stamped them with black ink onto the Basic White feature panel first and then coloured around them with a Light Pool Party Stampin’ Blend, blending it out with the Colour Lifter. Once you then adhere the die cut flowers over the top, this shows a very subtle blue shadow.
So much for a simple card, hey!!
Stamping Sunday Blog Hop Design Team …
I am really looking forward to seeing what the other team members have created today. To move forward in the hop, head on over to Jay Soriano’s blog here. Or to go back to the previous blog, head back to Tami Hewlett’s blog here.
Here is a list of all the blog hop participants….
More Sunflower cards ….
Around the World on Wednesday – Monochrome Rainbow Challenge
Celebrate Sunflowers for All Star Tutorial Bundle Blog Hop
This is my monthly rewards code … use it when checking out to receive a gift of a 12 video tutorial bundle. Click on the image to add link to your shopping cart automatically.
Supplies used to create the large sunflower card … Click on the image to see more details in my online shop.
Product List
Supplies used to create the small sunflower card … Click on the image to see more details in my online shop.
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your choice of markers & colouring is beyond description…..it’s beautiful. These cards & others on your blog could be framed & displayed; TFS!
Oh Sue … thank you … you make me blush! And feel all warm and fuzzy! Thank you for such a lovely comment! xxx
Oh wow, those Sunflowers in your first card drew me in. The colouring is incredible. You make me want to pull out my set and get inky again x
Thank you so much Mikaela xx
Cheryll, Love your sunflower cards! All are gorgeous!
Thanks so much Su! xxx
Wow Cheryll, wonderful cards!!! I adore the watercolored one with the bright colors and gorgeous background. And, I admire all the thought and detail that went into both to make them so beautiful.
Tami you have made my day! Thank you xxx
Two beautiful cards with one of my favorite sets! With that lovely blue background on the first card, you’ll have me longing for Spring with months of Winter yet to go.
Thanks Sara! We are finally having some warmer days! xx