Eat, Drink, and Be Rosemary!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Today I have a project featuring one of my illustrations for Simon Says Stamp: Herb Labels. This stamp set features several different types of herbs and was initially designed to create labels for an herb garden! I, however, possess the blackest of black thumbs, so I added a bunch of fun, punny sentiments to make the set work for gardeners and/or cardmakers! When I was brainstorming ways to use this set, I loved the idea of a classy “wallpaper” created from the herbs, a la Martha Stewart. I created a similar card when the stamp set was released, but I didn’t love it, so I thought I’d try again with a different medium and color scheme.

I began by stamping the rosemary stamp from the Herb Labels set onto some Fabriano Artistico Hot Press paper using Contour Ink from Hero Arts. I then selected two different shades of green from my Karin Brushmarker Pro stash and scribbled them on my ceramic palette. To paint these small, intricate images, I used a very small, fine paintbrush. I picked up the color with my damp paintbrush and, using a light flicking motion, painted each individual sprig of rosemary, first with the lighter green color, then after the light green had dried, went back in with the darker green to add some deeper, more shadowed green tones, giving the rosemary sprigs more depth. When doing simple painting like this, in which each individual image (or sprig) is merely one color, rather than a larger image that requires more colors and pigment intensity to show shape and depth, it’s easy to work with the lighter colors first, and then add the darker colors over the top. I find that I am more likely to add smaller amounts of the darker colors as just accents when the image is “full” from the base layer of light green.

After I had finished watercoloring the images, I die cut the A2 Thin Frames die from some Evergreen cardstock from Concord and 9th. These thin frame dies from Simon Says Stamp (in addition to the A2 Rectangles, Simon carries A7 Rectangles, and Circles) come as one piece, with the option of leaving them intact or snipping them apart; I’ve kept all of mine together, because with one pass through my machine, they create the handiest little array of frames for future projects. I have found the investment of these frame dies to be such a great value! I love pairing a thick and a thin frame to create a double frame, which is what I’ve done on this card. I adhered the frames on the outer edges of the watercolored “wallpaper” panel.

For the greeting, I die cut and heat embossed the rectangular frame from Herb Labels. I sized the sentiments so that they would all fit within this label image. I love that the thick and thin frame die cuts on the card front mimic the thick and thin frames on the embossed label! I popped up the sentiment label with some foam adhesive, then added a natural white twin bow for some added texture. I also added a bit of sparkle with some Champagne Glitter Drops from Pinkfresh Studio.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I usually am intimidated by no-line painting on smaller images like this rosemary stamp from Herb Labels, but even as small as it is and as many times as it was stamped on the background, the card came together very quickly! Simplifying the amount of detail on the images really helped to make the process a lot smoother and quicker. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!