Fairy Tale Florals + Fussy Cutting - a fun afternoon's crafting

 This afternoon, after a quick tidy up of my desk, I carved out a little “play time” in the craft room—and I knew straight away I wanted to use the colours from Altenew’s latest Inspiration Challenge. I also decided to pair it with Jen’s Live Challenge for this week: “Fussy” (use something you’ve fussy cut on your project).

I was inspired by Natasha Foote’s YouTube video from April 21st, where she stamped a large image onto a card front and then fussy cut around the outside edge. Perfect timing, because I’d just treated myself to a new pair of Tim Holtz fussy-cutting scissors this week—and I was very keen to give them a go.

I went shopping in my Altenew stash and pulled out Fairy Tale Florals. There’s a gorgeous large image in that set, and it was exactly what I needed for this design.

I stamped the floral image directly onto my card base and coloured it with the matching simple colouring stencil. For the flowers, I blended Rubellite and Razzleberry Crisp Dye Inks; for the leaves, I used Frayed Leaf and Forest Glades Crisp Dye Inks.  I used a Gold Posca pen to add gold on the stamen and flower centre. 

Next, I drew a pencil line about 1 inch in from the edge (top to bottom) and then fussy cut around the flowers so the design “breaks” the edge of the card front.  Boy, the new scissors awesome!

To add more detail, I masked off just over 1 inch on the inside of the card and blended Rubellite ink through Altenew’s Deco Leaves stencil. I used whatever ink was left on the blending brush to softly tint the stenciled area, keeping it light and airy.

To finish it off, I added a very narrow strip of gold cardstock along the inside edge of the stenciling, then stamped a small black sentiment from Altenew’s Best Sentiments mini stamp set.

Hope you are able to get some crafting time over the weekend too.