Clean and simple day 3 take 2

Good morning.
I managed to make another card yesterday for day 3 of the clean and simple online card class, but I was not able to photograph it before the sun went down, so I did it this morning.

The topic of the day was 'optical illusion' and Jennifer showed a few masking techniques that inspired this card.

Firstly, can I jut say how much I LOVE this stamp set.  I fell in love with it the second Nichole Heady sneak peaked it.  Unfortunately for me, I was not able to place a full order on release night so I resigned myself to admiring it from afar. Until a very sweet lady on the PTI forum offered to add it to her order and mail it to me.  The dies were sold out, so I still have to get that, but I am one happy camper for the time being.  Now onto the card  ;)

The moment I saw this set, I just knew it had to be colored.  I digressed from the examples Jennifer showed us in that she had a a lot more white space. So at first I thought I would mask off a border along the outside edge of the card.  But these flowers are quite big and I really wanted to show them in all of their glory.   I opted to go all the way. 

I started off by embossing the smallest rectangle in the Lil inkers stitched mats die set to create a frame for my sentiment.  I just adore these stitched mats, they add such a fun extra kick to a card.  Next I masked that section off with some post it tape and went to town stamping all those pretty flowers in Momento tuxedo black ink.  I then spent an insane amount of time coloring in the flowers with copic markers.  I took great care to use lots of shades and highlights to add the optical illusion of depth and height. I used a white gel pen for the dots. I wanted these flowers to sing! When I was done with all the coloring I took a very light grey marker and outlined the flowers for even more dimension. So, it all looked great! (IMHO) ;) but I decided to add some distress ink in scattered straw to the outside of the panel. Lastly I embossed the stitched lines on the outside edges to tie it to the sentiment panel and finish it off.

I cannot tell you how much FUN I had making this card.  I know for a lot of people spending this much time on a card seems like too much of an effort for one card, but for me, it is like therapy. To just sit and get lost in my thoughts for that time is like taking a mental vacation. One that is often desperately needed around these parts ;)) 

Lastly, I know this does not fit the whole 'clean and simple' category... but it is one layer and it does have the 'optical illusion' thing, no? ;) 

So I hope my card does not digress too much from the path, and I hope you enjoyed your visit today.

I'm off to attend to some tedious housework, and hopefully I will earn some time to play with today's lessons  later.
Have a great day friends.
Tasha