It Started with A Bran Flakes Box

As I think I've hinted at once or twice this paper playing stuff has led to a startling spending spree.  Ironic then that the focal point of this card began life as a Bran Flakes box.  If only all of my supplies were so reasonably priced!

One of my many 'oooh I want to try that' moments was watching some Paint Fusion stuff.  It actually took a while to convince myself to take the plunge - I am no artist - but eventually I could resist no longer and a stack of acrylic paints and stamps arrived.  I hadn't bought any card suitable for painting and thus the Bran Flakes canvas was born.

I covered the card in an off white paint which I let dry and then covered with a layer of PVA glue.  When the glue was 'about halfway' dry I covered it with a dark blue paint and let the crackles happen.

A few of Sheena's daisy stamps arranged on to the blue background and then the real fun could begin.  I couldn't believe how easy it was and my first attempt was pretty successful I thought.  I did have one hairy moment - the top daisy was intended to be facing away but I messed it up so improvised and turned it into a full on daisy facing this way.  I didn't think it turned out too bad and decided it was worthy of my best friend Caroline's birthday card.

Having decided on this the rest of the card came together pretty easily.

 

I used a lovely flower Creative Expressions mask to emboss some blue Core-dinations card.  A little bit of sanding and dusting and that was ready to go. 

I had just invested in some Spellbinders 'gromet' tags and used one of those to add the Daisy label.  I took Sue Wilson's advice and stamped the word 'Daisy' as the first step, then positioned the Spellbinder around it and cut and embossed as normal.  Leaving the Spellbinder in place I gently coloured the label with  Weathered Paint Distress Ink  

A couple of  silver self-adhesive dots were added to look like nail heads.

On the inside of the card I used a stamp from one of my favourite sets - Hero definitions - but needed to crop it to fit inside the Spellbinders Beade Square frame.  I did this by creating a mask of a 2x2 square, used that to stamp only the 2x2 bit of the stamp onto the card. I then positioned the Spellbinders frame, cut and embossed it and finally lightly coloured the embossed circles while the Spellbinder was still in place and covering the centre square with some scrap paper.

I was really pleased with the card. Not bad for my first Paint Fusion effort and Caroline loved it!