Stencil with Sprays

Hi everyone.  Today's card is all about the spring flowers and bright, fun colours.  Don't you just love this time of year??!! :)

I also tried a new stenciling technique for this card.  I used three colours of frost sprays (yellow, lime green, green) over top of a textured mesh stencil on watercolour paper.  I spritzed until I was happy with the colours, then I took a tip from Debby Hughes and placed a heavy jar on top to weigh it down.  After it has mostly dried, I removed the jar and pulled off the stencil.   That piece is used as my base tag for the card.  Love this technique.  Pretty easy and a fun way to incorporate some of my new homemade sprays made with liquid watercolour concentrate, pearl paint and water.  :)

I die-cut flowers, sponged around the edges, and then shaped them with my stylus and mat.  Because the background was sparkly, I decided to spray my flowers with a bit of sparkle as well.  For the leaves, I sprayed another small piece of watercolour paper with the two shades of green I used for the background (left out the yellow) and then die-cut two leaf sprigs.  For the sentiment, I used left over paper from my leaf sprigs, stamping the two words in Versamark and heat embossing in white.  I cut them down to mount them separately.  For the ribbon, I bleached some crumb cake seam binding, and then dyed it with the two shades of green sprays to match the tag. :)

I made this card as a reminder for a couple of challenges.  First, Happy Little Stampers April CAS challenge is stenciling.  Don't have any stencils??  You can make your own with dies, punches or hot glue.  Check out the challenge where you'll find a few videos on how to make your own stencils, and several videos on stenciling techniques.  :)

And also Mixed Media Card Challenge for April is Flowers.

I hope you'll check out the challenges and play along! :)

Stamps:  Bloom Sketches (STAMPlorations)
Paper:  White (Neenah); Watercolour (Arches 140 lb. cold press); Regal Rose (SU!)
Ink:  Regal Rose, Versamark
Accessories & Tools:  Stitched Tag Die (Paper Smooches), Five Point Flower dies (Memory Box), Little Leaves die (Sizzix), Textured Mesh Stencil (Memory Box); Sprays (yellow, lime green, green) made with Liquid Watercolour Concentrate (Dick Blick), Champagne Mist spray (Tsukineko), stylus and mat, seam binding, dazzling details (SU!)

Challenges:

HLS April CAS Stenciling Challenge
Mixed Media April Flowers Challenge