Saturday, April 12, 2014

Warm Thoughts

Still playing with distress inks and solid stamps.  This one is for the new Hero Arts Spring Sketch challenge, using their sketch #2.


I used a solid butterfly from their Forever cling set and picked raspberry, orange marmalade, worn lipstick, and squeezed lemonade distress inks on watercolor paper, covering as much of the surface as possible.  Then I spritzed with water VERY liberally, until the colors were running and blending.  Next I blotted the whole panel with a paper towel, and dried it with my heat gun.  I made my own tag and chose this old Watercolor Coneflower wood stamp.  I smooshed picked raspberry, orange marmalade and mowed lawn on an acrylic block, spritzed them with water, then picked up the colors individually with a brush and painted right onto my stamp.  I tried making a banner as the sketch shows, but it covered up too much, so I decided to stamp it right over everything instead.  It's from their Find Joy clear set.  To finish, I added a coral ribbon and some sequins for sparkle.

And here's another, following sketch #3, and using a similar watercolor panel using the same Forever butterfly and distress inks as above.  For this card I took that big circle as a theme and used dotted washi tape, a border of dots, and some circular sequins.  Other HA stamps used: Traditional Butterfly, and My Happy.  I stamped and clear embossed the butterfly, then used orange marmalade and picked raspberry mixed with water to paint in the colors.


The challenge runs through May 25, so there's lots of time for you to enter, too! There are FIVE $30.00 gift certificate prizes up for grabs!

10 comments:

joy said...

Pretty cards today, Lin! Especially the second one - is the dotted border stamp from Hero Arts? I never enter their contests; maybe I'll give these sketches a try.

Barb said...

Both cards are so pretty, Lin! Love the color choices! Fabulous take on both sketches!

Susanne Vargas said...

Love both of your gorgeous cards!

Helen F. said...

Oh how pretty both of these cards are, Lin! You certainly have mastered the art of using distress inks as watercolors!
PS: the Leanna Butterfly is gorgeous

Dawn T said...

Gorgeous cards. Your background inspired me to try something similar with distress inks and some HA stamps.

Laura Sterckx said...

Both cards are absolutely gorgeous, Lin. Love the colors!

Jackie said...

Those are so pretty and I like the idea of using just a strip of the stamped piece as an accent on a card, too.

Janet a.k.a. swanlady21 said...

That background is brilliant Lin - love your colour combo. It would also be a good entry for the "make your background" challenge at A Blog called Hero.

Karen M said...

Two gorgeous cards - I love your colour combos and the butterflies are so pretty:) xxx

Angela said...

Lin, this two are so beautiful!