Whimsy Wednesday ~ Stained Glass Sunflowers

Hey there lovely crafty pals. I'm here today to share my last Whimsy Digital Design Divas post for June. How is that even possible. This year is flying by at break-neck speed! I hope your year is going well and you are having some fun crafty adventures. I've been having a blast on the Whimsy Design Team and our 6 month term is up, however, I've been invited to stay on, so I'm super excited to have a second term as a Digital Designer for Whimsy Stamps. It really is the loveliest team to design for. The whole crew is incredibly supportive and have you seen the gorgeousness we get to design with?! I still pinch myself occasionally that I actually made the team. It's been such a fun six months and I really can't believe how fast it has gone! Now let me show you what I've been up to lately. 

There are some utterly gorgeous 'stained glass' designs at Whimsy Stamps at the moment, so I decided I wanted to ink this gorgeous Sunflower design up on acetate and make it really like a stained glass panel. (Be sure to use StazOn ink on acetate.) I've coloured up two designs and the second is finished quite differently. I'll share that with you at a later date. This was my first attempt and although it was really difficult to capture this in good light, I think you get the idea. Above, you can see the panel unmounted, hanging in the window of my Aromatherapy Studio. The studio has a privacy screen on the glass, so it worked well to showcase this lovely panel.

Here's the panel hanging in my kiddies playroom, with our back fence behind it. Clearly, I need to clean the moss off the fence! LOL. But this shows it with clear glass behind the panel, so the background shows through more.

Here you can see the colours intensify as it's mounted against the cream card background. I've adhered it with temporary glue to the card base so it can be pulled off and hung as shown above. For the panel construction I used Olba Glue, which holds really firmly, so the acetate stuck to the frame really well. I created the aperture design with some stitched edge dies from my stash and punched a couple of little hearts in the bottom corners for interest with my tiny hand punch. I coloured the 'sky' in alternating shades of blue as I had seen done by the artist of this design. It looks so fabulous and really evokes that stained glass look.

I coloured on the back of the acetate with my copic pens. In retrospect I would use brighter and darker shades on the acetate, as the colour doesn't appear as vibrant on acetate, especially when hung in the window. It still looks pretty, but in this case you can go colour mad and get away with it! Bold strong colours I think would work best on the acetate.

The lovely thing about creating this Sunflower panel, is that my London Aromatherapy Studio, was called Sunflower Studios. I had four studios across London at one stage. Now I just have a little studio at home here in Auckland, New Zealand, quite a change for sure! It was really lovely to hang this in my home studio and it so reminds me of my London days. You can find the gorgeous stained glass designs at Whimsy Stamps of course and you can click through on the link below directly to that part of the store for a closer peek at these amazing designs. 

I will share the next stained glass panel creation with you after our New Release Launch, which is only a few days away, woohoo! So watch this space, I'll be back on Sunday with my first creation for our July New Digital Releases. You're gonna LOVE them! Do pop into the Facebook page to check out what the rest of our amazing design team have been up to, there's always something new and gorgeous being showcased there and you're welcome to share your creations with us too! Even better come and enter our Monthly challenge, it's 'Anything Goes' as long as you use a Whimsy Stamps image. I'll be back again very soon with the new release creations, until then, happy crafting xoxo

Challenge Entries:

Not Just Cards: June ~ Anything Goes

Lemon Shortbread: #70 ~ Anything Goes

Cardz For Galz: #74 ~ Summer Sunny Days

Alphabet Challenge: G is for the Great Outdoors

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Crafty Catz: #422 ~ Anything Goes + Beautiful Blooms Option

Moving Along With The Times: #74 ~ Flowers As The Main Focus

Update: I made the Top 3 at Moving Along With The Times. Thank you so much ladies, I'm really delighted!!