Building Floral Patterns with Stamps

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Hello friends,
Preeti here on the Rubbernecker blog on a beautiful Monday Morning. Today I have two cards for you that are same but different,I know it sounds oxymoron, but I will explain as we move along. I have always loved patterns, especially textile prints. My Grandparents from my Dad’s side owned a textile and designer paper printing press. I would watch my grandfather create various prints using wood blocks carved in various designs by himself to create patterns. These are called block printing, and each pattern were know by their positioning of the print or design. He used terms like dot pattern , half brick pattern, random, brick pattern, radial, straight which is also called linear etc. Even summer the school was done I would wait eagerly to get to my grandparents. My grandfather would have tasks for me to do at his press and as a little girl that was the highlight of my life. Even to this day textile patters still make me happy and I very often try to replicate some those patters in my card making world.
 
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In the above image you can see that the pattern looks random, but look closely there are clusters of threee flowers and then a single flower repeated consistently. I also used the flower bud as a filler element. Color is another key element when choosing to build patterns, I chose blue and gray. In this case I wanted the focus to be on my blue flowers. Also when building a pattern you have to look beyond the edges of the paper or textile as that indicated that the pattern is continoius.
 
The design elements in a pattern can either be defined by fine black line or no lines at all. In my next image you can see the difference between the two. Remember early on I mention same but different, you will see that in the image below, though they are both the same patterns but they differentiate by the defining line on one of them. These lines don’t necessary need to be solid they can be sketchy, like I have drawn. I chose a sketch lines because the flowers are meant to look free hand watercolored and that adds to the aesthetic of the image. Also notice that my black lines are not very thick, it is important to choose the right thickness of the lines depending on he nature of your element.
 

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Next step is to add some more fillers. For that I simply created random irregular shade dots between the stamped images. I chose warm gray copic marker, W3 and W5 which was the closest match to the gray of the color fuse inks I used for my leaves. The image below show the finished look of the pattern with the fillers. I so sorry I forgot to take the picture of the second patten with dots that have the black line. You will see it later in the card that I created .
 
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Lets move on how I transformed these patterns into cards. I had build the pattern initially on a 81/2×51/2 sheet of white cardstock. I then cut it in the center to make two 41/4×51/2 inch panels for my cards. One of them had lines and the other had no lines.
 

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My first card is the no line version. You will notice that I have added the darkest of the blue color fuse ink for these flowers and that because it is these dark lines that enhance the shape of the flower and because they are no lines it is effective to do that. I simply added a sentiment on a card stock very similar in the color of the dark blue ink using white embossing powder. and mounted it on a white top folding note card. The pattern is the sole focus of the card and not a secondary element, so keeping the other element to the minimum was important.
 
Below is another look at the first card.
 

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My second card is the line version.
 
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Everything is very similar to the first crds except that I have added the black lines around the floral images and the irregular dots that I created using my markers. Also notice that Have not added the dark blu ink layer to this pattern as the black line helps to enhance or rather define the flowers. I embossed the sentiment Smile on a black hardtack with embossing powder and fussy cut it. I also added an addition sentiment which is a part of another sentiment from Blossom In Spring set. I adhered the sentiments using foam tape. This panel was then mounted on to a top folding blue card stock.
 
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I hope I have inspired you to look at your floral stamps to create patterns and gave you an insight to pattern building. I would like to know if you liked the line or the no line version of the pattern and if you would be interested in learning more about patterns in the future. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today and I hope to see you soon with more creative ways to use your stamps until then stay safe and keep spreading handmade kindness.
 
“Cretiveness is finding patterns where none exist”. (Thomas M Disch)
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