Hi everyone! 

It's Erica back on the Pinkfresh blog with some ink blending extravaganza, using the lovely and totally dreamy Wintry Forest layering stencils. 

I absolutely love stencils because they are so versatile and affordable. Stencils that can cover several occasions also add to their allure. At first glance you might think that this stencil isn't going to be meant for anything but holiday cards, buuuuuut I'm hoping I will make you see that it's actually rather versatile. 

Ok, full disclosure, I DID end up using foiled sentiments from the Perfect Sentiments Holiday set, because I have finally cracked foiling after it eluded me for ages. Currently the Perfect Sentiments Holiday set is sold out, but the Perfect Sentiments set is in stock. 

Having said that, these backgrounds would work for all sorts of occasions, like thinking of you, sympathy, retirement, masculine birthday and nature lovers birthdays. 

Instead of going for the expected look with greens for the Wintry Forest stencils, I went purple, blue and then fiery with yellows, oranges, red and fuchsias. I also added a generous splattering of gold on all three, because I love that as a finishing touch. 

For the first card I used all the purples, from light to dark, Soft Lilac, Lavender ,Candy Violet  and Regal Kiss. 

Because I love blues I also used the Morning Sky blues: Sky Blue, Summer Shower, Seaside and Storm. These are just dreamy. 

For the last card I used Lemon Whip and Sunshine, Apricot and Persimmon, Coral Reef and Berrylicious, and finally Bubble Gum and Raspberry Bliss. 

When I had finished the ink blending, I popped them, one by one, into a box and splattered some gold watercolour on them. After these had dried, I trimmed the blue and the purple down a little and adhered them to white card bases. 

The sentiments I picked out are done with both rose gold and gold foil, using the Perfect Sentiments Holiday set. I also cut out some extra pieces using the coordinating diecut, and layered the sentiments up for a little bit of dimension. 

The purple card got a rose gold foiled Merriest Christmas.

The blue one got a Warmest Wishes in gold foil. 

The fiery forest got a rose gold foiled Merry & Bright. This one isn't trimmed down, but I probably should have done that. However, I had adhered the sentiment already, so I couldn't trim it. 

 I hope you enjoyed this post, and will try an unexpected colour combination yourself with your stencils. You never know how it will turn out until you give it a go! 

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica