More Hydrangeas for Ellen Hutson.

I have a love affair with hydrangeas. And it’s so difficult to find beautiful hydrangea stamps… well, it WAS so difficult. I’m totally smitten with these Mondo Hydrangeas from Ellen Hutson. I resisted for far too long, and I kept seeing stunning examples of them on IG, so I finally just gave in to the inevitable and purchased it. Boy, oh boy, am I glad I did!! I have the Mondo Magnolia and Mondo Poinsettia already, so now I’ve completed the (current) Mondo collection. *Here’s hoping that Julie has more mondo flowers up her sleeves!!!*

Today’s project is being entered into the Ellen Hutson Calling All Artists challenge on the EH blog. We were to focus on an EH set and accent with another company that EH carries, so I grabbed Mondo Magnolia and Blessed from Mama Elephant, some detail white embossing powder, and my trusty Zig markers and went to town! 

I started with an A2 sized panel of Montval watercolor paper. I heat embossed the main flower image three times around the edge, creating a frame, then added in some leaves here and there. Then came the really fun part… watercoloring! I used Light Carmine and Tea Rose Zig markers, concentrating the darkest shades in the center of the hydrangea petals, then pulling the color out with my Zig markers. The leaves were done with Emerald Green Zig markers, and I concentrated the color along the interior veins and along the farthest points on the sides, to try to give the illusion of a curve on the leaf. I wanted a contrast to the background, so I used the Cobalt Blue Zig marker, just outlining lightly along the edges of the flowers. The pigment is concentrated enough that I don’t need to lay down a whole lot of color to get quite a lot of coverage with my wet paintbrush. 

Now, I didn’t want to cover up too much of the panel, since it wasn’t a quick process to color all of those lovely (numerous) hydrangea petals, so I die cut a piece of vellum using The Ton’s Stitched Rectangle dies. I heat embossed my sentiment from ME’s Blessed, then decided that I needed to color a couple more of the single hydrangeas and a leaf to accent it (and conveniently hide my dimensional adhesive!) I thought about adding sequins, but was talked out of it, and looking at it a few days later I’m glad I didn’t add the sequins… it’d be too much on this already-busy card. 

Well, that’s it for me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post (my second for today *gasp!*). Have a fantastic week, friends!!!