It is Dare to Get Dirty time at Splitcoast!!

What is Dare to Get Dirty? It is a special week during the year that the folks in the Dirty Dozen host a bunch of challenges as a thank you to all the fan club members. Not a fan club member – check it out.

I made a sample card for one of the challenges (you can see all the challenges here if you are fan club member).

I did my favorite wet paper watercolor technique. Wet some watercolor paper, stamp your image – let it bleed, then after it has dried some, re-stamp the image. My first stamping (the wet) I did with 2 colors – red & orange; my final stamping was just the red.

Since I didn’t stamp any leaves, I wanted a touch of green, so I did a tiny mat around the stamped panel. I love how it turned out!

I use Ranger watercolor paper because it is whiter than anything else I’ve found and I like that – a LOT. One thing about it though is that it is very textured which makes stamping sentiments difficult (even with a MISTI). I had an epiphany when I made this card. I used my acrylic bone folder to gently press the texture out of the area where I wanted to stamp my sentiment. I still used my MISTI, but the de-texturizing really helped!

Thanks for taking a peek!

It is time for the Papertrey Ink’s Blog Hop. The inspiration piece was, indeed, very inspiring! Here is a snippet of the photo:

I love the colors, and the mix of florals and geometrics. Those are what I took to make my card:

The card base is Soft Stone. I embossed the moroccan tile background onto the edge of the card base. The tile image isn’t long enough to just do one impression. Knowing I would never link the two impressions perfectly, I made sure to stamp one end under where I wanted the large flower to overhang. It isn’t visible in the photo since the card is turned away, but I did pretty good; there is a little goof, but even in real life you have to really be looking for it.

Thanks for taking a peek!

The next PTI challenge I worked on was Watercoloring with Kay.

I chose my colors based on how they stamp…but apparently Ocean Tides watercolors green 🙂 Still, I’m happy with this. My card is much more subdued than Kay’s sample card, but the technique is fun.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Heather brought us a Pointillism Technique!

I really love Heather’s sample card – the dots are obvious, but it works. I think I may have over done my dots and blended too much.

I embossed both the front and back of the card base because the cream panel wraps around to the back and allows the twine to be tied at the spine. Just something different for me.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Got messy (but had fun!) while making my card for Lizzie’s Drips & Splatters challenge

This was fun and frustrating all at once! I loved Lizzie’s video – I learned how to do a bunch of different splatters – in the past I just winged it. Unfortunately I didn’t have any yarn (well, I know it is somewhere, but I could NOT find it!). I used some string and it didn’t want to hold the color. I was using watered down reinker and I’m thinking the color medium wasn’t thick enough like watered down paint might have been.

I wish the medium splatters in dark blue showed up better in the photo – they are done with Twinkling H2Os and they sparkle so prettily!

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with this background other than an ocean theme. When I started looking through my stamps I decided the life preserver would be a great way to add a pop of contrast color…from there choosing the sentiment was easy!

Thanks for taking a peek!

I am running out of steam; this is my fifth card today! The PTI team has brought us an inspiration challenge. There were so many wonderful artworks to chose from, but I settled on a ballet by Degas.

I love the colors from the artwork. I chose a wreath as it calls back to the ballet tutus.

Thanks for taking a peek!