Inpsired by Catherine Pooler and Jill Foster....

I've joined Catherine Pooler's StampNation... an amazing online site that has lots of videos and techniques and a fabulous forum.

Catherine is a fabulously talented lady - very real too... you'll often see her making mistakes and bloppers and then showing you how to fix them.  I really enjoy visiting... On one of my recent visits to StampNation, I watched a video by Catherine that was inspired by one she'd seen Jill Foster do.  Jill is another extremely talented artist.  The technique both ladies used was a Ghost background... a very simple but effective technique where you stamp a background in versamark ink and let it dry.  Once dried, you sponge on distress ink and paints.  It give a very subtle background.  I CASE'd the card that Catherine did...

Can you see the subtle background.  It's a Hero Arts background stamp.  My green colour is Bundled Sage.  My focal panel is made using a Penny Black Sunflower stamp. I used Distress Markers to colour the stamp and spritzed with water before stamping.  I then used Wink of Stella to move the colour around a bit.   The sentiment is from a Winner and Walter set.  I used a Fiskers punch to cut the panel edge and added some PP down the side.  Finished with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins. 

Here's a close up of the beautiful background. 

This is will be a background technique I will be trying again.