Inspire Me Monday: Primroses put on a SHOW!

Hello all and welcome to another Inspire Me Monday with your hostess, Julie Koerber! Today, I am going to work a little masking magic to show you how you can take a darling trio of primroses and make your very own “auricula theatre.” What, pray tell, is an auricula theater? Well, it’s a piece of garden decor that lets the small but mighty, bold-colored primrose put on a BIG show! This method of display started in 17th century Europe and has been a lovely expression ever since. Since primroses are delicate and sensitive to too much light, these hutches were created to protect, yet show off these beauties too! See?

Source: tpholland

Or, how about this sweet structure with all of those moss-covered terra cotta pots? LOVE!

Source: spitalfieldslife.com

So Ms. Marcella and I were talking not too long ago and she said, “We really....ReAlLy.... REALLY have to show folks how to make their own auricula theatre with our Potted Primroses set! At the time, I had NO idea what an auricula theatre was. Auracula what? Afterall, I am a brown thumb. Marcella is the epitome of a green thumb! I digress. I wish you could “hear” Marcella when she gets excited. She talks, oh, about a thousand words a minute and has mini screams mixed in for good measure. How could I say no when she asked me to give you all a “how to?”

So, here goes — a peek at how YOU can make your own auricula theatre thanks to a little ink, a stamp set and a few Post-It Notes! Let's get started!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Potted Primroses stamp set
• Ink color of choice (I used Memento Tuxedo Black)
• Post-It Notes
• detail scissors
• Copic markers or coloring medium of choice

LET’S START... by stamping our trio of pots image onto our card stock and then make a mask using a Post-It Note.

CONTINUE... by cutting out your mask and laying it over top your stamped image!

WITH THE MASK IN PLACE... Take the single stamp from the Potted Primrose set and stamp it off to the left of your main trio.

NOW... You need to make a mask of the single primrose. You’ll notice I didn’t trim around it completely because I planned to build my theatre from the bottom up. So really, the most important part of the mask is the top three flowers. 

WITH YOUR BOTTOM LAYER MASKED... stamp the primrose trio again at the top. You can see that I stamped it so that the little note “Primula Auricula” sign would be masked in the second image. I didn’t want multiple signs in my final theatre if that makes any sense! ;-) From here, you’ll just keep moving your two masks and adding primroses — either the trio or the single pot — until you have the configuration that you like! 

There will be times when you set your mask down, and stamp over top only to have a piece of your image missing, like you see below....

DON'T WORRY! This happens! And, here’s how you fix it!

WITH THE HELP... of a Copic Multi-liner pen (.01mm) you can fill in the gap with ease!

And, after mixing it up and masking along the way, here’s a peek at my auricula theatre in the making! One additional tip — as I masked, I made sure that the flower I was laying down would hide the end of the shelf from the primrose trio. This way the shelf looks continuous — the way it should! 

Aren’t those little pots darling? I couldn’t wait to color them up. And.... so I did! I used Copic markers and after I was done, I knew that my “theatre” needed a little bit of pop in order to look like the real deal. 

TO CREATE.... the auricula theatre, start with a 5-3/4" by 5-1/2" piece of kraft paper. On the 5-3/4" side, score at the 1/2" and 3/4" lines and then flip the paper 180 degrees to get the other side at the 1/2" and 3/4" lines. Afterward, I took the Spellbinders Labels Seventeen and centered it in between the two most inner score lines and cut that center portion out.

FROM THERE.... I stamped the two corners using the large round primrose stamp from the Potted Primroses set and Memento Toffee Crunch ink. Then, I folded along the score lines so that once folded, it would, in essence, create a little box. The cool thing is that if you are mailing this, you just need to collapse the box to one side or another to make it flat! Since there’s no top on the box, it does this easily! 

ABOVE IS A PEEK AT THE INSIDE.... of the card! I used another sentiment from the Farmers Market stamp set and then, again using Memento Toffee Crunch, I stamped the large primrose on the inside corner as well.  

AND HERE’S A LOOK AT MY FINISHED CREATION!  I added a few pennants (notched strips of decorative paper from the Carta Bella Yesterday paper collection), a rhinestone adorned paper flower and the sentiment is also from the Potted Primrose set. It really says “A Cheery Hello,” but when I stamped it on a 1/2" pennant strip, the “a” was cut off and, well, I thought it still worked! ;-)

So with a few Post-It Notes, a fun and cheery stamp set and some markers, you too can make your own auricula theatre. This one doesn’t even need a green thumb to care for it but it’s bound to deliver sunshine to one lucky receiver! 

Thanks for joining me today! Have a fabulously creative week! 

~Julie