Splashes of Watercolor

I'd Pick You! (and race photos)

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Hey there!  As I was browsing blogland when I returned from my Mom's Sunday, I came across the latest retrosketch and it really inspired me to create.

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I love the tag shape on the front of the card in the sketch and wanted to try some black flower outlines on kraft.  So here's what I came up with:

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Yes, I just had to add the Pool Party into the mix.   And I wanted the scalloped piece to be for my sentiment so I used a completely different color to make it stand out!

I hope you like it!

ps ~ I had promised a few photos of the All-Star Race/Blake Shelton concert/All-day Party from a couple of Saturdays ago.  Here you go:

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Thanks for stopping in again today.  See you tomorrow for a "Fairy Tale" kind of day from A Day For Daisies.

Let Your Light Shine - Color Throwdown #194

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It's summer!!!  Well, at least you would think so if you go to the Color Throwdown blog today!  (Or step out into the 90+ temps we've been having in SC!)  This week Barbara is our host and she's chosen some of my favorite colors - beach colors!

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She even used a photo of the beach as an inspiration!  A lady after my own heart!

Since I obviously have the beach on my mind, I pulled out my Smooth Sailing stamp set from Our Craft Lounge to make an ocean inspired card.

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I love the lighthouse with the little heart and the font of this sentiment is fabulous!

Please plan to get into a summer state of mind and play along with us!  You can find all the details at the CTD blog.  And please check out all the great creations of the design team:

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Thanks so much for stopping by today!  See you soon!

 

Pinwheels Are Fun!

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Good Friday morning!! 

This week's release from A Day For Daisies is all about fun!  Pinwheel fun!  And today starts a new challenge at the ADFD blog too - "Pinwheel Photo Inspiration":

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Told you!  Fun!

I chose to only use the yellow color, but I was inspired by all the pinwheels in the photo, so I filled my background with pinwheels.  I think it really makes the yellow one pop!

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I made this card for my niece who's graduating high school next week!  I hope she likes it and that it makes her smile!

We'd love it if you all played along in the challenge with us!  Check out the details at the ADFD blog.  And you can find all the new images at the ADFD main site and the ADFD Etsy shop!

There's lots more inspiration for you to see at the other designers' blogs:

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Alice Wertz *** Arielle Gordon ***   Lori Boyd *** Shelly Mercado *** Tracy MacDonald

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Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you all enjoy your weekend and please be sure to take a moment in remembrance of all of the men and women who died while serving our great country.  Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

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A Journaling We Go: Inspired by Words (page 1)

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**Scroll down or click HERE for the Color Throwdown challenge post.

Hello, everyone and welcome to our latest E-Team blog hop!  You may remember that last time we revealed how we had designed our journal covers.  And Daisy challenged not only the E-Team but everyone to create a journal cover.  Based on those entries, we added 2 guest designers for this blog hop!  Please be sure to welcome Melody Schwartz and Marjie Kemper as you travel along the hop today.

Now here are the business details before we get started:

• Visit each E-Team blog participant PLUS the guest bloggers to leave a comment to win a $25 eP gift certificate. Comments can be left from May 23-May 28th.
• Two random winners from the blog hop will be chosen. GC winners will be posted on the eP blog on May 29th.
• Join the E-Team in our journal adventure and post your journal page on the eP blog.  We are going to pick 2 people to join us next month! You have until Sunday, June 3rd, to upload your journal page inspired by this month's quote.  We'll pick and announce the next E-Team guest bloggers on Fri, Jun 8th.

On to the creative stuff!

Here is our inspirational quote for this month:

"A woman is like a tea bag - you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water."  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Since this is my very first journal page, I decided to start simple and stay pretty literal.  Baby steps, folks!

My first creative step was to make some tea!  Yep.  You read that right!  I boiled some water, threw in 3 tea bags, let it steep to get pretty strong, then set the tea bags aside to dry out and put the tea in a container to use later.  When the tea bags were dry, I opened them up and emptied out the tea leaves, then just flattened them with my hand.

I painted my journal page with the tea, let it dry, then repeated the process several times until I got the color and coverage that I wanted.

I printed a teacup template that I found on Pinterest onto some patterned paper and cut that out, then drew an outline around it using a Copic multiliner pen.

Next I drew some curvy lines with a pencil to represent steam coming from the cup.

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I painted the steam with some pewter Twinkling H2O paint and then inked all the edges of the page with some Ranger Distress Stain in frayed burlap.  I created random dots on the page using my Dylusions  Dotted Flowers stencil and the stain as well as some Claudine Hellmuth Gesso.  I also spritzed some of the flower border using Ranger Distress ink in tumbled glass.

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Then I sponged the edges of the tea cup, added the tea bag tag to it and wrote the quote using the Copic multiliner pen on the tea bag.

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I needed to add some more "oomph", so I sponged behind where I was putting the tea cup and other random areas, lightly stamped the flower from Studio 490 Forever Art stamp set,  then highlighted the steam with a white Sharpie paint pen.  The large circles that look like teacup stains are where I dipped an empty toilet paper tube in some Distress stain and stamped it onto the page.

I also used my multiliner pen to outline the page, some of the dots, and the steam.  I created some shadows by making dots with the pen.

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And TADA, I declared my very first journal page finished!

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I hope you enjoyed experiencing my process, now please travel on to visit the other E-Team members and guests to be totally WOWed by their creations:

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Linda's feeling a little under the weather so she's not participating this time.  But please stop by her blog to show her some love and share some healing thoughts!

I'm so grateful you stopped by to visit today!  I hope you have a wonderful second half to your week!!

Pumpkin Birthday Flower - Color Throwdown #193

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Hey everyone!  It's time for another Color Throwdown challenge and this week Wanda is our hostess with the mostess!  She picked a great inspiration photo and the colors are bright and happy!

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I wanted to try out my new Dylusions ink spray (in Pure Sunshine), and so I decided to go a little artsy with my card.  I love the effect of this beautifully saturated color.   The other colors were brought in through several random elements - washi tape (green dots at the bottom), leafy vine border die, zig zag stamp from the OCL Every Heartbeat stamp set and the pumpkin colored flower from the Fabulous Florals set.  It was really fun to put together!

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You won't believe the gorgeous creations you'll find at the design team members' blogs!

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I hope you'll be able to play along with us using this fabulous color combo.  I'd love to see what you create!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'll be back in just a little while with a new E-Team blog hop - our first Journal page inspired by a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt!

 

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Mama Kisses

 

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The newest release from Tammy Thompson at A Day For Daisies is called Mama's Darlings.  And darling they are!  I'm so in love with these beautiful drawings of Mamas and their babes!

The one I chose to color is called Mama Kisses and it's gorgeous! It's also on sale for 50% off this week only!

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I decided to use softer colors this week to reflect the soft sweetness of newborn babies. The layout is this week's MOJO Monday sketch - MOJO241:

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The patterned paper is C'est la Vie from Melissa Frances (currently on sale at eclectic Paperie), and that wonderful paper bow was made using the new small Bow die from Lil' Inker Designs.  Another winner from Laura!

And so ends another week, y'all! 

Please stop by to see what the other ADFD designers have colored up for your inspiration and check out all the new images at the ADFD blog, the ADFD Etsy shop, or the ADFD main site.

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Alice Wertz *** Arielle Gordon ***   Lori Boyd *** Shelly Mercado *** Tracy MacDonald

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Thanks for dropping by!  I hope you have lots of fun planned for your weekend! 

Me?  I'm headed to the All-Star Race in Charlotte tomorrow!  That includes a Blake Shelton concert too!

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Be still my heart!  I hope I survive to tell y'all about it!

 

 

Let's Celebrate - Color Throwdown #192

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Hey, everyone!  Welcome!

It seems that Wednesday has rolled around yet again and that means it's time for a new Color Throwdown challenge.

The great and wonderful Oz, oh, I mean Tammy, is our hostess this week and she's chosen a totally awesome color combo and inspiration photo:

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Beautiful, huh?

I was in sort of a hurry to get this card done, but I hope it doesn't show too much!  I colored up the banner image from the Unity March 2012 KOTM set with my Copics, then popped it up on foam tape onto a panel of white cardstock which was impressed using my new Lil' Inker Designs Texture Plate - Frame 1!  It's so cool, and it made the perfect backdrop for my banners.  Great design, Laura!

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You really need to visit all the design team members, as well as our Most-Talented May Guest Designer, Kittie Caracciolo, to see their fabulous creations!  Then please join us at the Color Throwdown blog for the challenge!

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Thanks so much for coming by to see me today!  I hope I'll see you back on Friday for my sample of the new A Day For Daisies release!

 

OCL117 Keep Calm

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Just a quick post today to show you a card I made for the Our Craft Lounge challenge OCL117 this week:

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Now I'm a Pinterest fanatic, so it was hard for me to choose which pin to inspire me, but finally I chose one from my "The Sea" board:

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image courtesy of crushculdesac.tumblr.com
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I just love it!

I tried to recreate it in paper, using the Smooth Sailing stamp set along with some Copic Opaque white paint and some decorative tape I picked up in the office supplies section at Target.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

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What do you think?  It was fun using something I had already chosen to inspire me.  Why don't you try and then link your creation over at the OCL blog! 

Thanks for stopping by today!  See you tomorrow for another Color Throwdown challenge!

 

Happy Mother's Day!

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Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful, nurturing, selfless mothers in blog land!

This is the card I made for my Mom.  I also made one for each of my daughters, who are mothers as well.

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I used the Wrinkle-free Distress technique on water color paper using 2 of the new Spring Ranger Distress inks - Shaded Lilac and Peacock Feathers.  I used the same technique on my eggshell seam binding so that it would match the background.

The image is from the retired Stampin' Up! set Easy Elegance.  It's stamped in Shaded Lilac.

I'm going to spend some time with my Mom today and then with my sister at Artisphere in Greenville, SC.  Should be a fun day!

I hope you all have a happy and festive Mother's Day!

 

Go Vintage and add Polka Dots!

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That's the new challenge at the A Day For Daisies blog!  What fun!  And Tammy Thompson's new release called Vintage Circus is so awesomely fun and perfect for this challenge!

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I chose the Vintage Lantern Clown to play with.  And I'm also using this week's MOJO240 sketch:

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Here's my card:

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I just love how he looks with the Graphic 45 On The Boardwalk patterned paper!  And I just got the new Dylusions  Dotted Flowers stencil, so I had to use it!  I spritzed the spiral page with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Sea Glass using the stencil!  Sparkly!  It matches the flowers that were highlighted with my Atyou Spica pen in Turquoise!  (You can kind of see it in the cropped photo at the top of the post.)

I hope you'll take the time to play along in the challenge with us!  Take a look at the wonderful new images at the ADFD blog.  They're available today at the ADFD main site and at the ADFD Etsy shop. 

You can see more samples from the design team here:

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Alice Wertz *** Arielle Gordon ***   Lori Boyd *** Shelly Mercado *** Tracy MacDonald

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That's it for me today!  Thanks so much for dropping in !  Have a great weekend!