blue flowers...

Hello my fabulous friends!

It's a new month, and that means new challenges!

Today I'm playing along with Altenew's Inspiration Challenge...

 Aren't those color GORGEOUS?!?!

It's definitely not a color combo that I normally work with, but I'm kinda really LOVING it! Especially the blue with the teal... swoon!

 That's one of the things I love about participating in challenges... It forces me out of my normal 'ruts' and I find new ideas that I adore!

 Here's my take...

Stamps: Altenew Peony Bouquet, Remember This, Oriental Orchid, Amazing You

Ink: VersaMark; Altenew Moon Rock; Zig Clean Color Cornflower Blue (037), Turquoise Green (042), Blue (030), Bright Yellow (052), Lemon Yellow (051), Light Brown (061), Deep Green (044); Distress Marker Hickory Smoke; Chameleon Color Tone Pens Mellow Yellow (YO2)

Other: clear embossing powder; Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear sequins

I started by stamping the images with VersaMark on bristol paper, and heat embossing it with clear embossing powder. I then put down a layer of Cornflower Blue, and added in some Blue and Turquoise  Green in the shadows, blending it out with water.

(If you want to see a step by step of how I do varigated flowers with Zig Clean Color markers, you can check it out by clicking HERE and HERE...)

BTW... The black you see along the bottom edge in that photo is actually the BACK side of my MISTI... It is magnetic, so I just use the MISTI magnets to hold my paper in place while watercoloring. Pretty cool, huh?  It makes it super easy to adjust, and move around while I'm working.

The leaves were done first in Deep Green, then Turquoise Green  was added in... I actually am really loving that color combo, and my 'go to' green blend for leaves may be changing!

I had a hard time getting the yellow flowers just how I wanted, so even though they are tiny, they are a blend of 3 colors... Bright Yellow, Lemon Yellow, and Light Brown. 

I then stamped my sentiment (using two different stamp sets... I love that you can do that to create your own sentiment!)

And hand sketched a border using a Distress Marker... I love that they have the plastic nib on the one side so you can doodle fine lines with them!

To finish things off, I added some 3mm clear sequins... However,  that didn't quite look right, so I colored them yellow with the YO2 Chameleon pen... Since these pens are alcohol based, they work beautifully on plastic. Use the bullet nib so you don't damage the super soft brush nib.  (You should be able to use whatever alcohol markers/inks you have to do this...)

What I do, is take a 3 pieces of masking tape... The first one goes on my desk sticky side up. The other two go on the ends of the first piece, sticky side down to tape the tape to my desk.. Then I can just stick the sequins onto the sticky tape and color away. It has enough tack to hold the sequins while coloring, but they come off really easy when you are done. It works great!

(and yes, I know the picture above shows pink sequins, but it is a lot easier to show in a photo how well the markers change the look of the sequins with a darker color. The yellow is light and subtle (which I LOVE, but it doesn't photograph quite as well...)

Anyway... There is actually some sunshine today (3rd day in a row!!!! I think we are going for a record!)  So I'm going to go soak it in. :)

Enjoy!

~Kassi