celebrate sunflowers.

This sunflower stamp set is called Celebrate sunflowers and is new from Stampin'up. I ummed and erred over buying this set for a while, as it's not really the sort of thing I would go for normally. But I am so glad I did. I didn't buy the die set that goes with this stamp set, but after fussy cutting a load of sunflowers and leaves I am beginning to wish I had.
To create these cards I stamped the sunflowers  and masked them off before stamping the leaves. 

I coloured the images  with Copic markers and using the splatter stamp from the French Foliage set, I stamped the splatters randomly around the panel.  I must add,  I used the second  and third generation stamping technique  to stamp the splatters. What that means is .... You ink up the stamp and stamp it on scrap paper, then without adding more ink you stamp your work. By doing this you get a lighter shade of ink. Third generation stamping is when you stamp the ink off twice before stamping your work.  You will get a very pale image when you use  the 3rd generation stamping technique.
I then lightly  sponged the edges for a slight vintage look.

I stamped the sentiment last as this needed more drying time. I used a pigment ink because I wanted an intense  black that stands out and they are very slow drying. I could have used memento and stamped it over and over again to achieve a deeper black,  but I thought I'd save time and use Versamark as it turned out by the time the versamark had dried I hadn't save any time at all.