Happy Heart Day Series | Tropical Love ft Lawn Fawn "Gnome Sweet Gnome"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Sometimes you start out trying to do one thing, or just playing around with no real plan and the result turns out better than you thought it would.

This card is also my first attempt at "mirror stamping" - a fun technique where you can flip an image so it faces the other way. It definitely takes practice, but the results can be very satisfying.

To begin, I stamped the right flamingo from Lawn Fawn's "Gnome Sweet Gnome" set with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I then used the mirror stamping technique with Paper Smooches "Stamp Mirror Blocks" set to get the flamingo on the left.

The image will not come out as crisp as the original stamp and I highly recommend a stamping tool like the MISTI to get it lined up the way you want it; to fill in the areas that didn't stamp as clearly, I used a Copic-safe liner to trace the lines of the stamp.

I then masked them both off and started on the background. I created a circle mask for where I wanted my setting sun to be and then began sponging Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and Faded Jeans Distress ink to create the water.

For the sky, I started with Wild Honey at the bottom and worked a blend with Dried Marigold and Worn Lipstick Distress inks, going back and forth until I was happy with the gradient.

Once those were completely dry I removed the sun mask and sponged in Mustard Seed and Scattered Straw.

I then removed the masks from the flamingos and coloured them with Copic markers. I used my Black Soot Distress marker to create the island shadows in the background, and my Salty Ocean Distress marker to create texture in the water. For the white reflection of the water I used the Copic Opaque White.

Finally I mounted the panel to a slightly larger piece of black cardstock and then adhered the whole lot to the front of a standard A2 sized card base. I felt that this card really spoke for itself so I opted to not include a greeting.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.