Firstly I’d like to thank LeAnne for selecting my card as a cut above at The Paper Players this week. It’s an honour to be recognised.

And on the heels of such recognition, I’m entering another challenge on a new to me blog –  Loves Rubberstamps Challenge blog. This one calls for a black and white card with a touch of colour.

I intended to watercolour the background for this card with an aquapainter until I recalled that the watercolour paper isn’t exactly white. So I got out my sponges instead. I made the template from one of the plastic sheets that the photopolymer stamps come on; I stuck the photopolymers directly onto the case. I cut out a square using a framelit from the squares collections (I needed to add a piece of cardstock since the plastic is so thin) and then carefully slid the framelit so that it was only overlapping a little bit (so that I could line it up) before cutting a second square. I can see a lot of uses for this template…

I then used sponges and crushed curry and pumpkin pie to make the background. The two step stamping from Summer Silhouettes is stamped in the momento tuxedo black ink as is the sentiment from A Dozen Thoughts. To keep this card clean and simple, I mounted the whisper white cardstock onto a base of whisper white. The envelope is dressed up with the backgrounds DSP on the back flap.

I had so much fun creating yesterday’s card with the watercolouring that I wanted to try more of it. When I first got an aquapainter last June, I tried it once and made a horrible mess and decided to come back to it later. And then blendabilities were launched and I ignored my aquapainter. And quite happy I was to do so! But now that blendabilities have been discontinued, I thought I’d have another go with the aquapainter and I am now delighted that blendabilities are no more otherwise I probably wouldn’t have tried this.

I used my circles collection and made a template out of some scrap and then, holding the template over my piece of watercolour paper, washed a gentle swathe of soft sky and wisteria wonder. After it dried, I took one of the flowers from the Stampin’ Up! Summer Silhouettes set and stamped it (it’s a double stamping process) in island indigo. The sentiment comes from A Dozen Thoughts set.  I matted the watercolour paper (using sticky strip) in island indigo and mounted that on a wisteria wonder base. I of course lined the envelope in the backgrounds DSP.

I’d definitely advise trying some watercolouring. It’s loads of fun.

See you tomorrow,

Liz