Ombre Lotus

Did you ever have one of those winters when you catch every bug that's going around? That's me this year; nothing serious, just enough to keep me away from my craft studio too long! So I'm playing catch-up with some of the latest CAS challenges I wanted to join.

Today I'm playing along with the monochrome challenge over at Less is More and the Ombre game at AAA Cards. 

This time I made a square card. I started with a 3.75" x 3.75" square of 300 series watercolor paper and stamped the lotus image with versamark. Then I heat embossed with white embossing powder before watercoloring with shimmer paints. I embossed the edge with a generic square frame and added a few clear Nuvo drops to the petals. Then I held my breath and put a few spatters of the same purple watercolor paint around the flower.

I mounted the watercolor on a 4.25" x 4.25" card of Neenah solar white that had been partially embossed using an embossing folder from Stampin' Up. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things Delicate Pretty Poppies set, which I'm afraid is no longer offered. I stamped that in Versafine Onyx to get the best detail.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies (affiliate links used; I get a little credit if you click through):

 

Sending Cheer

One of the most satisfying things about making cards is sending them, I've finally realized. I couldn't figure out why I was having such a difficult time being inspired until it hit me that I hadn't sent a card to anyone in over a week. The thought of sending a card or two made me happy, so I got busy and joined SplitcoaststampersSplitcoaststampers' Teapot Tuesday challenge for the first time. This challenge uses various photos of teapots as the main inspiration for a card (although you may use other sources of inspiration) that will be sent to the week's chosen recipient. That person's name and story have been submitted by members.

This past week the the recipient was a little girl who has had heart surgery, and faces several more. She comes from a large family, and her siblings' names were also listed, along with a favorite cousin. Several teapots were presented, all with figures of cats on them. Since I don't have any cute cat stamps, I took my inspiration from the colors of one of the teapots and chose a mermaid stamp set from Honey Bee stamps for my card. As the grandmother of four girls, I know mermaids and lots of bling never go wrong!

I created the background with distress oxide inks, and for the border, which was another requirement of the card, I embossed "waves" with Honey Bee's Ocean Border die. 

To color the image, I used Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and added some shimmer with my Gelly Roll glitter pen. The sentiment if from Sunny Studo's Magical Mermaids set.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies (some compensated affiliate links used):