Leftover stash card

I have a stash where I put all sorts of leftover bits and pieces of carstock, designer paper, any backgrounds I have made but don't quite know what to do with. I keep them in a little box which I have covered in silver paper and decorated with punched flowers. And sometimes I just go through everything that has accumulated in the leftover box to see if I can get inspired. And sometimes random things just come together, like for this card. Everything except for the gems and white cardstock came right out of the leftover stash. I always feel very proud when I manage to create a beautiful card from random bits and pieces.

I made the card main motif using the Floral Wood Cut stamp from Inkadinkado. I stamped it onto white cardstock using embossing ink and heat embossed using clear embossing powder. I then used Chipped Sapphire and Seedless Preserves distress paints for the colour, which was resisted by the embossing powder. I matted the motif onto white cardstock. Also the background panel was created using Distress Paints (Picked Raspberry, Victorian Velvet and Picket Fence onto watercolour paper. The banners are created using scrap papers and cardstock from the stash, I added a few adhesive gems and attached onto Kraft card.

The technique I used for both the stamped image and background panel involve Distress Paints and water spritzer. I dotted Distress Paints onto my craft mat in random swirls, and spritzed with water from a mini mister until there was small droplets of water on the craft mat. I then swirled the cardstock around in the colour and water mix until the whole paper was covered. I let the paper air dry, but you can speed up the process using a heat gun. You can see the amazingly talented Tim demonstrating this technique in this video here. I really enjoy playing with the distress paints, it's so much fun, although I tend to end up with dozens and dozens of backgrounds which I don't quite know what to do with in the end. But it's all about the creative process and about playing with the colours and that's what counts.

Distress paints: Seedless Preserves, Picked Raspberry, Chipped Sapphire, Victorian Velvet, Picket Fence
Stamp: Inkadinkado Floral Wood Cut
Cardstock: Daler & Rowney 190gsm watercolour paper, Hobbycraft white 160 gsm cardstock, Kraft card (and leftover scraps from Papermania Sizzling Red Hot set, Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry and the DSP Sycamore Street)
Other: Papermania adhesive gems, Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Ink, Ranger super fine detail embossing powder