Strawberries in Clay Pot

Hey everyone!  Today I'm sharing a card using the Pattie's Creations digi image Strawberries in a Clay Pot.  The challenge for the next two weeks is Anything Goes.  Since everyone needs lots of birthday cards, this is what I created.  Plus I incorporated a new technique for me as well.

To start off, I colored the image with Copic markers, fussy cut it out, and added Glossy Accents to the berries so they would be more dimensional.  After my background was completed, I only ran adhesive up the center of the image so the strawberry vines would have dimension and be lifted off the background.

For the background, I began by applying embossing paste through a The Crafters Workshop mini stencil (mini harlequin).  Immediately after taking the stencil off, I covered it with Sparkle N Sprinkle's Blissful Blue Sparkle N Soft flock.  Since I didn't want to ruin the design, I lightly pressed the flock into the paste, but not too hard.  Then I let it dry completely.  When I shook off the excess flock, there was a light layer that stuck to the embossing paste - just what I wanted.  I wanted to have a couple areas with heavier amounts of flock, so I took my heat gun and heated up a few of the diamonds and then rubbed more flock into them.  The diamonds were heated enough to let the flock adhere to them, but not so hot that they changed shape.

Next I die cut this with the Sizzix Cameo Frame die.  I didn't want to leave the background white, so I spritzed the entire thing with Tsukineko Walnut Inks (Terra Cotta and Cornflower).  Since the embossing paste acts as a resist, I was able to take a paper towel and blot off all the excess ink from the flocked areas.

I added a couple corner dies from MFT (Four Corners) and added my sentiment, which was die cut from a Memory Box die (Primo Labels).  I added Glossy Accents over the sentiment as well.