Oriental Orchid & A new store Ranganjali

Hello all!

I am very glad to announce that I will be associated with a new online craft supply store opened in India today. It is named Ranganjali, which means offering of colors. It is going to carry various international and local art and craft supplies. My crafty friend in India, you should check out this store. They are a running promotional offer and free shipping.

At this happy occasion and in view of upcoming Valentine's day, I have created this card using Altenew's Oriental Orchid Stamp set. There are very few stamps that have orchid designs. I wanted to try this stamp set since they it was released.

I like orchids. Being very different from other flowers, they carry certain charm. In most orchids, the petals seem to have been arrange in two layers and in different curvature. To capture this, I decided to use vellum for the flowers.

First, I stamped outlines of the flowers with Altenew's Ruby Red Crisp Ink. I then colored the flowers with Prima Marketing's Watercolor Pencils- 01, 09,30, 21, 84, These colors are white, yellow ochre, orange and magenta. Lighter colors I used in center and darker at the edge, to create an impression of veins, curvature and overlapping among petals. I then stamped most central areas of each flower in the same Ruby Red. It is important to remember that vellum does not absorb any ink, and so, you need to let the ink dry otherwise it will smear.

Using a stylus, I curved the petals of the flowers for added effect. I also cut and separated petals around edge of the flowers.

I used larger card size- 5x6.5 inch so that I can add long stems and rows of flower. Before stamping the stems with Peeled Paint Distress Ink, I decided on arrangement of flowers and masked those areas. I stamped the large sentiment from the same stamp set in Pearlescent Chocolate- Brilliance ink and the smaller one in Jet Black StazOn ink.

Lastly, I adhere flowers with Glossy accents, touch up some stem areas using brush, with Peeled Paint. For added interest, I added some metallic sequins. And there it is! My try to recreate orchids on paper.

These and many more craft items are available in Ranganjali store.

Enjoy!