Good morning!!! Happy Monday…. and it is most definitely a happy Monday. Today is not only the new release for Concord and 9th (where you can receive TWO freebies for ordering during their Customer Appreciation Month), but it is also the start of a new challenge over on the Where Creativity Meets C9 blog!! Our prompt this month is: Spring. Ah, lovely spring. We keep being teased with a day or two of beautiful, crisp, sunny weather… and then it goes back to being rainy and cold and BLAH. (With the occasional snow flurry thrown in.) Winter has my official permission to shoo fly, don’t bother me.
Anyway, I wanted to challenge my inner Persephone, goddess of spring, with a cheerful, springy card. I have been in love with this gorgeous Wonderful Florals stamp set since I saw the tiniest little peek of it from CHA, so I was SO happy to have an excuse to put it to work!
For today’s project, I started with an A2 panel of Arches Hot Press watercolor paper and embossed the beautiful main floral image from Wonderful Florals in silver embossing powder. (I wanted those intricate details and solid portions of the stamp to be nice and smooth, so I chose to use Hot Press paper instead of the textured Cold Press.) Once that was cool, I watercolored those beautiful flowers with Avery Elle’s watercolors. Those new watercolors are just the perfect shades of springtime pastel, and you can make them super concentrated or just give a light wash of color. I made sure to tape my panel down to a cutting board, as I knew I would be using quite a bit of water for these images, and I didn’t want my paper to warp.
While my watercolors were drying nice and flat, I heat embossed the rest of the greeting from Wonderful Florals onto some light aqua card stock strips. After my watercolor had dried, I mounted my panel onto an A2 card base, then added some Crystal Lacquer from Hero Arts to the large “wonderful” letters in the center of the floral image. The shine on those letters really helps them to pop from the center of the image. I popped up the sentiment strips with dimensional foam adhesive and added a few Sparkling Clear sequins for some sparkle!
Well, that’s all for my project today! Now, it’s your turn! Use your Concord and 9th products to create your own Spring-themed project to add to our linkup on the Where Creativity Meets C9 blog. You could be eligible to win a $25 shopping spree to the Concord and 9th store, and one lucky winner will be chosen to be a guest artist for a future challenge! Don’t forget to follow all of the rules so that your project isn’t disqualified should you be chosen a winner!
Now, go get inky (and maybe get your shop on for the Concord and 9th new release…. did I mention there are two freebies up for grabs?!?). Have a marvelous day!