grungy + happy

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called, "watercolor" so you'll probably already have guessed that we'd like to see a bit of watercoloring on your project. btw, we count watercolor techniques that use distress inks, or water-based markers in this category too; then of course there are actual watercolor paints, and my favorite: colorburst pigment powders!

i love to use my colorbursts for traditional watercolor painting, as well as trying out the cool CB-specific "spritz and sprinkle" techniques that ken oliver shows off on facebook and youtube. something you'll discover pretty quickly no matter what type of watercolor you use, is that there is a serious "serendipity factor" involved. sometimes this means you get unexpectedly AMAZING results! sometimes... not so much, lol. the good news is that whatever the circumstance or quality of leftovers you wind up with, you'll be in great shape to make your own colorful custom diecut elements for cards!

in this case, i've used my very first set of ancient provocraft alphabet dies on some leftover blues, greens and purples to make a fab sentiment. after i cut and arranged my letters, i used a few older pattern stamps from hero arts, stampin' up and cherry arte to grunge them up a bit. i mounted the letters on foam tape over a torn paper collage, stitched the panel to a leftover scrap of gelli print background, then made the whole thing into a "tall card" that will fit perfectly into a #10 envelope. i added some star stickers from the late, great, fancy pants designs and called it good to go!  

and now i hope you'll head on over to SOS and see what amazing creations my DT darlings have cooked up to inspire you! ♥