Monday, March 21, 2022

WINDMILL IN THE TULIP FIELD

Do you love old fashioned windmills?  How about tulips?  Since I'm from a Dutch ancestry, I guess both are in my blood.  So today we are going to take a bicycle ride to a field of tulips surrounding a stately white windmill.


This card involves almost no stamping.  The only thing on this card that was stamped is the tree!  All the heavy lifting was done by the dies from Windmill Fields Dies.  But if I'm honest the heavy lifting wasn't heavy at all.  These dies are a breeze to work with.

And how did I make the pretty sky background?  Even easier!  The background is one of the designs from the Flowering Fields Designer Series Paper.  If you have not looked closely at this paper, you really need to do so.  Of course, it goes without saying that the tulips are beautiful, but there are also three designs in this collection that are some of the prettiest skies I think I have ever seen -- well, at least the paper kind of sky.  


To make the field of tulips, I simply used the row of tulips die to cut several assorted colors of cardstock and then adhered them to the designer series paper.  After inking the tree stamp with Pear Pizzaz ink, I took a paper towel and removed the green ink from the trunk and colored it with an Early Espresso Marker.  There is a coordinating die for the tree, but since I wanted to lean my bicycle against it, I needed the trunk to be a little longer than the trunk on the stamp and die.  So, after stamping the tree, I just drew the trunk a little longer with my marker and then fussy cut the tree.  


To give a bit of contrast between the solid body of the windmill and the overlay, I "grunged-up" the body a bit with Smokey Slate and Basic Gray inks and my sponge daubers.  The blades on the windmill were attached with a brad, so they actually turn.  If you want a movable blade on the windmill, I recommend that you use Thick Basic White cardstock and cut at least two sets of blades and glue them together.  The cross section of the blade around the center of the windmill is very thin so reinforcing it with a double layer is helpful.

I also popped up the bicycle with dimensionals which means cutting some tiny slivers of dimensionals.  There is room behind the hubs of the wheel for the Mini Dimensionals, and I used a Rhinestone to cover the dimensionals where they showed though the hole in the wheel hub.  Rhinestones make for a nice fancy hubcap!

For a little more bling I added three Brushed Brass Butterflies swirling around the blades of the windmill.  


To decorate the inside of the card, I followed the theme of the card front by adding a few rows of tulips and the tree.  Since the Tulip Fields Stamp Set does not include any sentiments, I borrowed a sentiment from the Flowering Tulips Stamp Set for the inside of the card.


What do you think of my almost "stamping free" card?  

If you would like a tutorial to recreate the card, one is available for downloading using this link.

A list of the products used on this card is shown below.



Product List

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