BLUE HYDRANGEA

The blue hydrangea that is the star of this card is done with the Baby Wipe Technique. The Baby Wipe Technique, you ask?

For this technique, fold a baby wipe in half and place it in the bottom of a shallow dish. Then you choose three reinkers in colors that play well together -- they don't make "mud" when they blend -- and drop them here and there atop the folded baby wipe, almost completely filling in all the white space with dots of the three colors until you have an area that is approximately the size of a traditional stamp pad. Let this sit a bit so the colors blend.

Use this "stamp pad" to ink your stamp. So the colors stay somewhat separate on your image, tap the stamp into the ink only once. If you want multiple images of the same stamp, stamp as many as you wish on a piece of Whisper White cardstock at this time.

I wasn't terribly happy with my stamped hydrangeas. I found the colors to be way too spotty with lots of white space/sparsely colored areas. 

Instead of throwing away my results, I simply went to work. It took me a few days to do this part, but I ended up with 12 good flowers to use in future projects. 

Here's what I did over the course of several sessions: I dug out my Stampin' Write Markers in various shades of purple/blue/turquoise, and, using the narrow end of each marker, I filled in spots that were missing stamping, often needing to recreate portions of the flower with my drawing. I did all 12 flowers this way. Thus the need for lots of time.

After the markers, I filled in a few spots with Prismacolor Pencils until I was satisfied with the look. 

I then fussy cut one of the blooms and added it to fussy cut leaves and stem stamped in Mossy Meadow onto Old Olive cardstock.

The tag upon which my flower rests is created with the darlling -- about to retire! -- Chalk Talk Framelits. I added another piece of Old Olive cardstock underneath the tag, cutting the corners to match the angles of the tag.

I had been planning to add ribbon to the top of the tag. But I just could not get that managed satisfactorily. So I ended up just tucking a Basic Pearl within the "v" of the tag. I like the simplicity of the look of the lone pearl.

This is the card that I am sending to my mom for Mother's Day.

To create a backdrop for my flower tag, I used inks and water on watercolor paper. I love how the softness of the like-colored background complements the flower tag so well. 

To get more inspiration for trying the Baby Wipe Technique, search for it on Pinterest. Lots and lots of ideas and samples!

Blue

Smiles.