Chalking a Vase

Today's card was born out of a challenge I faced.  I had a friend I wanted to send a card to - but she is nearly blind.  I thought, "What is the point? She can't see it anyway."  I thought about sending fragrant flowers, figuring she could at least SMELL those, but to get flowers to where she lives cost more than I felt comfortable spending.  Then I thought, "If I make a card that has layers and texture to it, she can feel that. And if I make it with flowers, I can spray perfume on them so that she can smell it too."  It might not be quite as nice as getting a bouquet of flowers, but at least it won't only be a gift for her limited sense of sight.

To make a card with flowers like I envisioned for her, I first needed a vase.  I found a pattern and cut a vase - several different ones in fact, but I wasn't happy with them.  They looked very plain and ugly  - like this:

 

I decided I needed to do some shading to try to make my vases look more realistic.  I first tried my Pearlescent chalk set from Pebbles, Inc, but they just didn't show up well on my paper.  Then I thought about my Non-smear Pastels from The Stencil Collection.  They worked wonderfully.  Using the little stipple brush that I got with them, I added darker colors where shadows would be seen - especially toward the bottom and right side of the vase.  I added lighter colors for highlights in the upper left, and blended shades from one to the other.  Here is a sample of several different shapes that I did this way:

As you can see, they look MUCH more like vases now that they have some shading added.

The card at the top of this post is the result.  I used one of the vases above (the one on the lower right - though I cut the bottom off flat to sit along the bottom of my card), and used it to hold the flowers.  The flowers were paper ones that came in a set I purchased from Paper Wishes. The centers of the flowers are the new Jewel Dazzles from Hot Off The Press, and the little butterfly is a Stitched Dazzle (also from Hot Off the Press) with little jewel Dazzles added for spots on the wings.  The stems & curled "foliage" were fashioned from thin strips of plain green paper. The stamped sentiment was from the Tiny Words and Images set of acrylic stamps (Hot Off the Press) and Pearlescent Sky Blue Brilliance Ink from Tsukineko (Dew Drop).

I was pretty pleased with the result.