Blossoming Woman Cards by Judi Kauffman for The Queen’s Ink

Do you know the theory called ‘Six Degrees of Separation’? It says that any two people are separated by only six people. So if I know Maury Povich and you know me, then you’re one degree of separation from him, but if you know the guy who cuts my hair that adds a degree. And so on. Well, here’s my story when it comes to the late, fabulously talented artist/designer Laurel Burch:

I taught at a college in Dallas in the 1980s. One of my students moved to California when she finished our graphic design program and got a job as Laurel’s personal assistant! It sounded like the best gig ever – product development, travel, and when they were in the studio another employee brought in a homemade lunch. (I always thought that having lunch arrive with no work on my part would be the ultimate luxury, don’t you?) So here I am, only one degree from Laurel Burch, alas, someone I never got to meet but always admired.

Fast forward – Laurel lives on through licensed products including a series of remarkable stamps and dies, available at The Queen’s Ink! I chose the ‘Blossoming Woman’ cling-mounted rubber stamp set for my cards. (My April 18, 2017, blog projects included a dog from the new collection and you’ll be seeing more stamps in weeks and months to come…)

Here are the easy steps for creating your own Blossoming Woman projects:

1. Pick a color palette and gather supplies that fall within it, or don’t pre-plan and just let things unfold!

2. Choose your favorite coloring medium, or mix several.

3. Stamp in a dark color on white or any light color cardstock.

4. Color. Color some more. Use realistic colors or venture far out of the box.

5. Hand- or die-cut the faces, earrings, flowers.

6. Combine the pieces with assorted background layers (stamped or plain solid color cardstock, origami paper squares, hand printed paper, gel prints – there are endless options!).

7. Other options (All are shown):

*Incorporate more stamping, for example: Mini question marks, a sentiment.

*Add dimension to faces, flowers, and earrings with foam tape.

*Accent with purchased embellishments like silk leaves and paper flowers.

Here are some close-up photos to show more of the details:

Supplies:

• Laurel Burch ‘Blossoming Woman’ stamp set
• Ink in dark color of choice (Shown: Denim)
• Coloring medium of choice (Shown: Winsor & Newton ProMarkers; Chameleon Color Tones Pencils, Sakura Pigma Micron pens 01 and 1)
• Cardstock in white or any light color and assorted other colors
• Patterned papers (Shown: Origami paper, gold and purple Indian hand printed paper)
• Foam tape or dots
• Glue to adhere embellishments
• Dimensional embellishments (Shown: Paper flower, silk leaves)

Optional:

• Dylusions stamps (Ranger)
• Assorted mini-size question mark stamps
• Laurel Burch ‘Blossoming Woman’ die set (not used for projects shown)