Freshly Made Sunshine

One of the reasons I LOVE being able to play along with the sketches over at Freshly Made Sketches is that I really have fun writing the blog post title!  ;)

The new sketch this week begged for some sunshine today, so I whipped out the Close to My Heart March Stamp of the Month, Sunshine Birdies.  Here's your sneak peek!

I used my watercolor paints, paper, and medium round brush to create the background. The sun was stamped first in Memento Ink, but I wasn't happy with the dullness after I painted, so I took a fine tip black marker over it again.

A sprinkle of Pretty Pink Posh sequins gives a little sparkle to the flat paint.  I colored the sentiment with my ShinHan markers and trimmed it out into a flat-bottomed cloud.  I wasn't done yet, though--I added some vellum cloud layers and white gelly roll accents.

I LOVE how it turned out!  Thanks for the great sketch, Jen!  :)

Freshly Made Sparkle and Shine!

Oh my goodness, where did the weekend go?  I had an amazing time with my friends at the Crafty Souls all day event...and then caught up with a tiny bit of housework before I stole away to play along with a couple of my favorite challenges.

I used sketch 206 from Freshly Made Sketches along with the inspiration photo from the Sparkle and Shine Challenge to create a wonderfully whimsical watercolor card!

I knew I was going to be giving my card a hefty sprinkling of my new sequins from Pretty Pink Posh, so I grabbed an equally sparkly sentiment from the Close to My Heart Diamonds Are Forever My Acrylix stamp set.

I ALSO experimented for the first time with a little bit of watercolor paint splatter on special watercolor paper...

This is my slogan!  I stamped it in Versamark Ink and heat embossed with Ranger Super Fine Silver Powder BEFORE I painted...and then matted the watercolor paper on a piece of White Daisy CS trimmed with Silver Foil Tape after the paper was completely dry.  I used my heating tool to dry it a bit faster.  I adore how the two silver features complement each other!

I love how the yellow splatter ran the blob of color!

It was super fun to get my feet wet again (oh yes, I did!) and play with my new watercolors.  I have to work on my splatter technique and play some more!  Thank for stopping in!  :)

Grab the Twinkle Stamp of the Month while you can and get a free gift from me!