a sign of the apocalypse??!

no, i haven't got a yard full of locusts or seen any more than the usual amount of evidence that my fellow citizens have started to become zombies; it's actually more impressive than that: i've made a card with a plain white background!!! yeah, i know... you're wondering if i'm really still lauren, or if i've been replaced by a fast-talking crafty cyborg. to tell the truth i'm a little curious about that myself. all i can say is, if it's the latter, then crafty cyborgs eat more chocolate than is probably good for them and think daniel craig is the bee's knees. so there's that. but what prompted all this? well, the new challenge at shopping our stash is called "sunshine on a cloudy day" for which we'd like to see an image of the sun, or some clouds, or both. as i was pondering what to make and trying to find some diecut photo-realistic sunflowers i don't remember using up, it suddenly occurred to me that i might be able to draw/paint my own sunflower AND a sky background on which to place it. so i did!

watercolor paper: strathmore; watercolor paints: koi and artist's loft; pens: superfine and extra superfine by faber castell pitt plus a fat bullet-point sharpie for the big dots around the sunflower center; large and small cloud punches by fiskars; very old set of lowercase alphabet stamps by making memories; glossy white cardstock and blue archival ink: ranger

the thing that made me lean towards a sunflower rather than the sun itself was this week's fusion card challenge, which is pretty flippin' awesome. and i'm not just saying that because i got a shout-out there last week for my "nifty" card; although i did, and i thank them for it!

meanwhile, after painting, outlining and fussy-cutting the sunflower and fashioning a blue painted-n-stamped sky background by masking bits of my watercolor paper with cloud punch-outs, i went to mount the whole thing on a background of patterned paper only to find that i didn't really like ANY of the (many, mannnnnnnnnnny) combinations i tried. finally, jeff looked at it sitting on my table next to the glossy cardstock base i'd already made and said, "you know, i really like it on just the plain white card." needless to say, being as he is both my true love and husband of twenty-nine years, i immediately ignored him and tried many many MORE patterned paper backgrounds, before giving up and using the white afterall. i like it, though. i think.

something i'm absolutely positive i like very much indeed is the gallery of beautiful and inspiring sunshine projects my fellow DT-mates have made, which are on display for your viewing pleasure at SOS! ♥