Inspired by Nature

I love the new Stampin Up In Colors but have always wondered why there aren't co-ordinating markers. I use markers a lot for coloring the floral images that I love so much. You wouldn't want your stem to be the same color as your flower, right? I wanted to use Baja Breeze and Kiwi Kiss for the Inspired by Nature stamp set for this card. So, I had to get creative. Just using my Aqua Painter or a wet paint brush and picking up ink from the stamp pad was not enough. The transference of ink was way too light. So this is what I did:

Use your re-inker (always always always buy the re-inker when you buy a new ink pad~usually I recommend buying the matching marker too but in this case, it wasn't available).



Drop a few drops of ink in the lid of the ink pad:



Use your DRY Aqua Painter to pick up the ink. I tried using the Aqua Painter with water in the handle, like I would for blending the water color pencils but it was way too wet. It just puddled on the stamp pad and blended into one ugly brown color.



Now start painting on your stamp pad.



And don't forget to wash it off between colors in a cup of water. It makes the water turn into such a nice pretty color! And no, it doesn't taste as good as it looks. Not that I tried, but I was asked by one of my kiddos.



The technique is easy but doing it with my left hand so I could use the camera with my right was not. I think I'll be needing an assistant soon.

The other new element in today's card is the use of the Big Shot to make the scallop circle behind the central image. This is using the Scallop die available from Stampin Up. The finished scallop circle is too big to fit on a standard 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card, which this is, so we made the circle and then cut it a bit to fit it on.

The last two posts have been written really early in the morning! My brain is half asleep but I have so much to do in the daytime, it is the only time to fit it in. Ok, maybe 7:00 a.m. isn't so early for you all, but for me......

This morning is the second installment of my monthly Card Class. Monday night was the first~~ and it was a blast. Love those ladies! Wednesday mornings are the new addition this fall. I don't think I've ever held a class in the a.m. I'm not even sure what the lighting is like in the stamp area before noon! But I'm excited.