Floral Wall Art

I've wanted to do some custom art for the wall above my bed for a while now. Having ordered the Stampbord Blocks (yeah, that's really the spelling) off eBay months ago, yesterday I finally sat down to try and implement my plan.

The brown background on each block was applied with Ranger's walnut ink and a crumpled up tissue. I'm not even sure which company the stencil is from, though in any case I didn't quite use it as is -- for one thing, I replaced the flower in it with a custom stencil I made using a tiny sakura blossom paper punch, and for another, I moved it around as I worked so that the vines sprouted out in more directions than the rather linear way the stencil was originally laid out.

I traced the stencil outlines in pencil and then filled them in with Perfect Medium pens, which is basically clear sticky embossing ink in a pen that will allow embossing powder to cling to it. After applying the embossing powder (the white flowers are JudiKins "White Diamond", the vines are Sparkle N Sprinkle's "Palm Green"), I melted it with a heat tool for a raised effect.

I still have to finish the edges, of course. I'm not yet sure whether I'm going to paint them or stain them with a darker color of walnut ink(Ranger's "Java"), and I have to spray everything with fixative, but the hard part is mostly done.

I might shuffle the order slightly, but this about what the final positioning will look like on my wall. With a few reservations, I mostly like how they turned out, but I'm also kind of embarrassed -- I know a lot of people would find this sort of thing kitschy as hell, not least of all some of my art professors in college -- and maybe it is, but they're going to go really well with my quilt, and I think they'll be peaceful to look at.