February Flower of the Month; Violets

Hey friends,
Here's my monthly piece for the Lila Grey Digital Flower of the Month. Once I printed the flower image on white cardstock, I went online to check out violets and their colors. I know, I know, you'd think I'd know that violets are purple with yellow in the center and that's what I saw for the most part. 

This time I colored the flowers first. I used my Gypsy alcohol marker from CTMH which is a dark purple. I used yellow acrylic paint for the centers. I also used my Pear alcohol markers from CTMH for the stems and leaves.

HINT:  My markers were dry when I tried to use them so I pulled the tops off and dropped some un-natured alcohol into the pen chamber. I read that somewhere on the web and this re-moistens alcohol markers. It works! I purchased the un-natured alcohol at a local hardware store.

I shaded around the flowers with an apricot watercolor Tombow marker. This is where the inspiration hit! I decided to use this amazing background stamp that I ALMOST tossed out. I was gifted a ton of stamps from Rubber Paws (see more projects inspired by Rubber Paws by clicking on the Rubber Paws label on the side panel) and slowly started separating out stamps I would not use. This was one of them. One day I looked at the pile & thought, "Hey, that's a pretty cool background stamp.  It has a little of everything." I LOVE this stamp! LOL

Right?!

Anyhow, back to my piece...after covering the colored image with masking fluid, I used Apricot Ink from Stampin' Up! to blend the marker and ink around the page, then stamped the background stamp over the image using the same ink color; two sets of circle stencils (one was outlined in black charcoal pencil & smudged and the other sponged with baby blue acrylic paint); added random squiggles/marks with a white-out pen; splattered black ink all over and also stamped with small bubble wrap.  Removed the masking fluid, added some shading around the image with my Sahara Sand marker from SU! and done.
Supplies:

Final Piece:

I'm entering the STAMPlorations Stencil Sunday challenge and January Mixed Media Challenge.  Stencils used are two circle stencils.  The smaller circles are from Heidi Swapp and other is an old one from my stash.  I do not know the manufacturer.

See their challenge and other entries HERE

Also at the Happy Little Stampers challenge blog.  Their monthly mixed media challenge is for stencils too.

Additional Piece:
I decided to make another one using basically the exact same supplies.  This second one only uses one circle stencil and is a little bit smaller than the main piece.  I'm going to adhere this one to a card base.