Simon Says Stamp | Mirror Floral Arrangement + Polychromos Coloring on Toned Gray Paper. Video

Hello friends! If you’ve been following me for some time you might remember that in the Fall of last year I fell in love with the Polychromos pencils by Faber Castell. I was gifted a set of 36 pencils and after trying them out on dark cardstock (see my first cards here, here and here) I was very much impressed and I continued to color with the pencils on other kinds and colors of paper.

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I today’s video I’m going to show you how to create a floral card featuring mirrored floral arrangement, some simple masking and of course Polychromes pencil coloring for a no-line look.

VIDEO TUTORIAL

As always, I filmed a video tutorial showing how to create this project from start to finish. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it. Watch it below or on my Youtube channel.

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CARD DETAILS

I picked Strathmore Toned Gray paper for my card today, I learned about this paper in one of the Facebook groups that I belong too – I went ahead and bough it and I’ve been using it actively ever since. It’s a great surface for coloring with pencils and this paper is very inexpensive – the 50 sheet pad that is 9×12″ is under 10$ so you get a lot of paper to play with.

I started working on my card by stamping the image from the Even More Spring Flowers by Simon Says Stamp in Simon’s Fog ink. The idea was to create a symmetrical or mirrored floral arrangement with minimal effort and later color it with pencils.

I rarely do masking because I am too lazy to cut the masks out for my stamps, but for this particular card I went ahead and I created masks for some images using masking paper.

I masked the first impression, rotated my paper 180 degrees (panel was cut to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″) and stamped same flower again. Next, I brought in the second kind of flower, I arranged it and stamped it onto my panel twice – once, and than I rotated the panel, repositioned the mask and stamped it again. Next, I stamped the leafy branch – and again I stamped it once, repositioned the mask, rotated the panel 180 degrees and stamped it again creating a mirror image.

I added some smaller leaves to make this cluster a bit fuller and again I repeated the same steps as before.

I was using specialty masking paper here – it is sticky on the back and it does make masking a more enjoyable task, but if you do not have specialty masking paper you can also use a sticky post it note or ever regular printer paper with some removable adhesive.

Once my stamping was done I pulled out my Polychromos pencil chart and I started on picking out the colors of my card. If you are wondering – you can download this card online, simply google Polychromos pencils chart, I got mine from the Faber Catell website and I just printed it onto thin printer paper and I swatched the colors of pencils that I have.

Currently I have close to 70 pencils, I started with the 36 pencil set and I got additional colors that I felt I’d use more in my cardmaking. To pick out the colors I used my color cards (see this video to understand what they are and how you can get yours). I picked out the pencils that mimicked my selected color scheme and I swatched them on the back of my paper in order to see what the colors would look like. Ideally, it’s bets to have a color chart on the same kind of paper you plan to color on, so it would have been smarted to have a color chart printed on this Toned Gray paper since I color on it so often, but I never seem to have the time to do this, so I just sketch my pencils on the back.

I used the following pencils for my coloring:

• #101 White, #170 May Green, #168 Earth Green Yellowish, #278 Chrome Oxide Green.
• #171 Light green, #166 Grass Green, #266 Permanent Green, #167 Permanent Olive Green.
• #102 Cream, #104 Light Yellow Glaze, #107 Cadmium Yellow, #108 Dark Cadmium Yellow, #250
• #109 Dark Chrome Yellow, #111 Chromium Orange.

Once my coloring was done I adhered my panel onto an A2 white card base and added a sentiment. With a coloring panel like this you can turn it into any kind of card you like – this can be a birthday, miss you, thank – anything really. I was making a card for my Mom, so I used a sentiment that reads “I Love You Mama”. I call my Mom Mama so I was happy to spot a sentiment that reads Mama and not Mom. I white heat embossed it onto black cardstock and cut it out with the help of a coordinating die. I don’t have a lot of sets that have coordinating dies for sentiments so I was glad to discover this set and I know I’ll be using it often for my cardmaking.

I stamped an additional message on the inside of the card – it reads “I am thankful every day that you are my mom”. I also embellished this card using sequins from Simon Says Stamp from their butterfly kisses set. These might be my new favorite – there colors are so nice and they just go well together with many different cards.

SUPPLIES

I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support. 

Simon Says Clear Stamps Even More Spring Flowers Shop at: SSS	CZ Design Stamps Love You Mama Shop at: SSS	CZ Design Dies Love You Mama Shop at: SSS	Strathmore 400 Series Toned Sketch Paper Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Black Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Faber-Castell Polychromos 12 Set Shop at: SSS	Faber-Castell Polychromos 36 Set Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Butterfly Kisses Sequins Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Fog Dye Ink Pad Shop at: SSS	ScraPerfect Crafting Pouch Shop at: SSS	Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun Shop at: SSS
Hero Arts White Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Versamark Watermark Emboss Ink Pad Shop at: SSS	Mini Misti Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS	Scor-Tape 1/8 Inch Crafting Tape Shop at: SSS
Tonic Studios 8.5 Inch Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS	Crystal Ninja Crystal Katana Pick Up Tool Shop at: SSS	Tonic Deluxe Adhesive Nuvo Glue Shop at: SSS