Friday Feature - bloom with joy

Hello friends.  It's Melody here with another Friday Feature.  I've been working on a monthly challenge at Motley Soul Mixed-Media Art.  The challenge is to make 21 (4"x6") cards.  This is actually my 21st card, although I do plan to make more, since I'm having so much fun doing them.  I've been making mine two-sided, so the back side of this one is still blank. 

I recently made an Inspiration Jar for myself.  Although the idea is not original, I tweaked it to make it work for me.  I've been reaching into my inspiration jar for ideas to get started on each card.  For this card, I pulled out the words, black, stencil, and chipboard.  I didn't use the word chipboard other than the card is made from cereal box chipboard covered with recycled coffee filters. 

I started by painting the surface black.  My paint dauber top is all hard and dried out, so I just opened the bottle and used a brush to spread the paint.  Once the paint was dry, I used my mini bricks stencil (Crafter's Workshop) and, since I don't have any texture paste, I spread some light spackling through it.  I've never used this stuff with a stencil before, so I guess I was a bit heavy handed, and some pushed underneath the stencil.  The bricks are quite as defined as they should be, but that's OK.  It dries very fast, so I proceeded to add color with a sponge and a number of different distress inks (tumbled glass, mowed lawn, mustard seed, spiced marmalade, picked raspberry, barn door, and seedless preserves), working gently, since I have no idea if the spackling is going to flake right off the card.  So far, it seems to be holding.  I hope it continues.  I'll just have to handle it gently. 

I stamped a bunch of flowers from Heartfelt Creations on a piece of white card stock with jet black archival ink.  I heavily sponged several with spiced marmalade distress ink, cut them out, and then sponged the edges with picked raspberry distress ink.  On three of the flowers, I removed some of the petals, so that when I placed them over the full flowers, the blossom looks fuller.  Two flowers were sponged with mowed lawn distress ink.  I cut the petals apart to make leaves.  After figuring out an arrangement I liked, I glued the flowers and leaves onto the card.  I then added some white dots in the center of the flowers with a white gel pen. 

The sentiment was handwritten with a white galaxy marker. 

Some of the products used to make this card can be found at Outlaw Women Scrapbook Emporium. 

I'm really happy with the bright colors over the black background. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.