Shadow play

It's no secret that I love to use richly coloured backgrounds for my quilling. Lately, however, I've been reminded just how fabulous quilling can look when mounted on a plain white background - so I decided to try a new approach for this card.

I've used just a tiny bit of digital 'trickery' to create a frame for the design: a white oval inside a white rectangle which, of course, when printed on a white card are both invisible - except that I've added shadows to try and create the illusion of a recessed 3D effect. It makes me think of a cornice on an ornate ceiling, or piping on the brilliant white icing of a wedding cake: you can only actually see it because of the shadow, which itself creates the illusion of depth.

Anyway, I decided to use this as the background for a floral design quilled in the vibrant colours which I love so much. And I've realised that there are many more framing effects like this that I can create using Photoshop ... I wonder where this will lead me next?