AWHT Colour Creations #19 Gorgeous Grape

Gorgeous Grape with Soft Pastels Assortment and Angels of Peace & So Many Snowflakes   

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the Art with Heart 2021-2022 Colour Creations Blog Hop.

This week’s Blog Hop is focussing on an intense purple called Gorgeous Grape. Gorgeous Grape is part of the Stampin' Up! Brights Colour Family and is a great colour, even if its one I haven't used regularly. I would have said that I'm not a purple person, however, of late I have enjoyed creating with purple in it's various SU shades. This week's projects started with a decision to use the Soft Pastels Assortment as hadn't used them since they arrived. Focussing on Gorgeous Grape was a great opportunity to experiment with techniques using the pastels.

Gorgeous Grape is produced in Stampin' Up!'s card-stock, both A4 & 12"x12"; Classic Stampin' inks (ink pads, re-inkers & ink spots); Stampin' Write Markers; Watercolor Pencils; Soft Pastels Assortment; the Brights Designer Series Papers; Ombre Speciality Paper; Sheer Ribbon; Pastel Pearls and Sheer Ribbon. The cards have used Gorgeous Grape card-stock, Classic ink, Soft Pastels Assortment and Gorgeous Grape Sheer Ribbon plus a range of other bits and pieces.

Background Techniques with Soft Pastels: 

I started by experimenting with 2 background techniques. I remembered seeing one technique, I think by one of the Artisans; the second - I hadn't seen anyone try. 

Starting with a container of water, I sprinkled fine scrapings from the Gorgeous Grape pastel stick on top of the water. I also sprinkled some Night of Navy and Coastal Cabana scrapings on top of the water and gave a little swirl. Then a piece of Fluid 100 Watercolor paper was laid on top of the water. When I lifted the paper, some pastel ink had transferred to the paper. I did notice that the powdered ink didn't lay on top of the water for very long but dropped to the bottom of the container, as such the colouring is fairly light. Next time it may be worth testing out transferring one colour at a time to the paper - layering one colour on top of another.

With another piece of Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper, I wet the paper with water from a Stampin' Up! Mister and then sprinkled scrapings from Gorgeous Grape, Night of Navy and Coastal Cabana pastels onto the damp paper. The powdered pastel dissolved a little, but generally didn't do that much, so I misted more water over the powdered pastels on the paper. This spread the colour, with some colour blending. As you can see the colour is more intense but there are some lumps of congealed powder. It will be interesting to experiment further at another time.

CARD 1:

Once the background panel had dried following being coloured using the first technique described above, it was embossed with the Merry Melody 3D embossing folder.

The larger angel from the Angels of Peace stamp set was stamped in Versamark ink onto Shimmery White card-stock and heat embossed with White Emboss Powder and a Heat Gun. Using the finest Water Painter the angel was coloured using the Soft Pastels Assortment. With remaining scrapings from the Gorgeous Grape pastel stick, plus some scrapings from the Real Red and Daffodil Delight pastels, the wet tip of the fine Water Painter was dipped into the pastel powder, dissolving some of the powder and then colouring the angel. This was similar to water-colouring using our re-inkers. As there isn't a brown pastel stick, I mixed a little Real Red and Coastal Cabana dampened pastel powder to create a brown for colouring her hair. I'm so glad for the colour theory I studied many many years ago.

The angel was fussy cut and layered over a couple of Wonderful Snowflakes on top of the embossed coloured background. The angel needed something else to ground her so I cut a side piece of Fresh Freesia card-stock using the pointed stitched die from the Basic Borders die set. Some gorgeous White Glittery Organdy ribbon also was added with the snowflakes and angel layered on top. The whole card front was mounted on a slightly larger piece of Gorgeous Grape card-stock. This was popped up on Dimensionals onto a Fresh Freesia card base.

The White Glittered Organdy ribbon and the Gorgeous Grape Sheer ribbon were both cut in half length-wise and a piece of each were tied into bows and tucked under the top snowflake,  adhering them with Glue Dots. A sentiment from the same stamp set was stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed with White Emboss Powder. The top line of the sentiment was fussy cut and adhered in place with Mini Dimensionals. A number of Subtle Shimmer Sequins were added to add some extra shimmer.

The card inner was decorated with the angle and a different sentiment stamped with Gorgeous Grape on Basic White card-stock. This panel was mounted on a slightly larger piece of Gorgeous Grape card-stock. A Basic White C6 envelope was also stamped with the angel in Gorgeous Grape Classic Stampin ink.

CARD 2:

The second pastel coloured panel was used as a background for a Snowflake Shaker card. A centre hexagon shaped hole was cut in a piece of Snowy White Velvet Sheet. It doesn't show in the photo, but it feels so soft and velvety. This die cut piece was embossed with the snowflake embossing folder from the Wintery Embossing Folder set. It creates a delightful embossed image.

A shaker window was created with a piece of Window Sheet, Foam Adhesive Strips, the delightful Subtle Shimmer Sequins with the background piece layered behind. The whole shaker window was mounted on a slightly larger piece of Gorgeous Grape card-stock and in turn adhered to a Fresh Freesia card base. The shimmer of the white and silver sequins is delightful over the pastel coloured base.

Three snowflakes from the So Many Snowflakes dies were cut from Fluid 100 Watercolor paper. These snowflakes (plus another 2 for decorating the card inner) were water-coloured using some remaining Gorgeous Grape, Night of Navy and Coastal Cabana soft pastel powder and the fine Water Painter. Once dry, the snowflakes were adhered with a little Multipurpose Liquid Glue and finished with Blue Adhesive-backed Gems. (The formal name may sound boring but they are anything but boring. Their shimmer and colour is scrumptious.)

A sentiment from the coordinating Snowflake Wishes stamp set was stamped in Smoky Slate Classic ink on Basic White card-stock. The sentiment was stamped again in Gorgeous Grape ink and the words "Merry Christmas" cut out. This piece was layered over the Smoky Slate sentiment with Dimensionals.

A left over piece of the coloured background and a very fine strip of Gorgeous Grape card-stock were added to the RHS of a piece of Basic White card-stock. The two extra water coloured snowflakes were layered on top. A Basic White C6 Envelope was stamped with one of the small snowflake flurry stamps using Fresh Freesia ink with a little Gorgeous Grape ink partially daubered on the stamp (using a Sponge Dauber). The stamping went all around the front edge of the envelope.

Thank you for spending some time with me. I had a lot of fun playing with techniques using the Soft Pastel Assortment. I would like to further explore the techniques used on these cards and refine my use of the techniques. There are many other techniques that I would like to try as well. You never know - they may turn up in more Colour Creations projects.

If you live in Australia, don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like your own copy of Stampin' Up's 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue and or the July - December 2021 Mini Catalogue, then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you. Please don't hesitate to make contact with any other queries about this project or Stampin' Up!. 

There is more Gorgeous Grape creativity. To continue with the blog hop, click on the "next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of a lovely lady, Ros Davidson. As always, I am looking forward to checking out Ros's creation and everyone else's. I do love seeing everyones' projects - so many ideas and such great creations

Hope to see you next week when we will be featuring Granny Apple Green; and don't forget that the AWHT Heart of Christmas Blog Hop is launched every Monday evening at 8pm AEDT until mid-December.

Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself and others.

Andrea 💕🐾

  

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the full list of participants on Catherine Proctor’s blog, our amazing AWHT Colour Creations Coordinator.  Check out her amazing creation while you are there.

#colourcreationsbloghop  #colourcreationsbloghop2021