Stretch Yourself

The Limited Supply Challenge on Splitcoaststampers was to “Stretch Yourself”.  The point of the challenge was to use two or more things that stretch us out of our comfort zone. It was not meant to be hard but a couple of simple things out of our ordinary style of stamping. It could be using a technique that is rarely used, or to use accessories or embellishments that we have but hoard, to try using a different family of colors, to limit or add layers, to sew or not sew, to use a different medium of color, and the choices could go on and on.  I’m sure you get the picture.

I scratched my head for a while trying to figure out what I wanted to do.  I saw a darling card by Lisa (Countrybeamer) in the LSC gallery where she stretched herself to create a full scene project and to use a stamping wheel.  I was inspired by Lisa to use a wheel as I have so many of them and never use them.  I pulled out my box and found the western wheel that goes with Wanted and Bronc Buster and that I just had to have but have never used one time.  I started working on the project and was not having fun and was not satisfied with my efforts so I ditched it.  After all, I deal with projects at work every day that are not fun and take a lot of effort and playing in the challenge is my way to relieve stress and to have fun.  I do have the philosophy that I should never give up on a project if I love what I am doing and just need to keep moving forward to fix boo boos or issues.  But I don’t think I should create more stress when I am trying to have fun.

I finally decided to do a clean and simple flower card and to color with my long forgotten watercolor pencils and a wet brush.  It really is no stretch at all for me to watercolor with a brush and reinkers but it is a totally different story when it comes to pencils.  I rarely seem to have good luck and give up. I am always so focused on creating scenes around a main image that I rarely use my gorgeous floral stamps. This challenge has reminded me how much I enjoy coloring flowers and how elegant they can be as the main focal point of a project.  I learned something else from this challenge as well.  I am a watercolor paper snob and really hate trying to paint with reinkers on regular cardstock. For this project I used a piece of my glorious white cardstock by Papertrey. I found that the pencil color seems to sit well on the paper and easily allows color to be built up for shading and contrast where reinkers seem to sink into the paper and look dead.

I stamped the images on white cardstock with Brilliance Black Graphite and heat set. I colored lightly with lavender and green watercolor pencils and used a wet brush to blend and shade the colors on the images. I used a pale yellow pencil to highlight the background of the image and brushed with water to smooth the color.  I cut out an additional flower and two leaves to pop up on the main layer to add interest to this simple flower image. The image colors matched perfectly to Pale Plum cardstock which I rarely use and Kiwi Kiss. I left the plum base card layer totally plain and used the stark white scalloped border with the piercing and crimping as simple embellishment layer that would not detract from the flower image. The simple green twill knot seemed the perfect finishing touch.

Stamps:  In Full Bloom –Stampin’ Up! (retired)

Paper:  Pale Plum and Kiwi Kiss, Papertrey White

Ink:  Brilliance Black Graphite

Accessories:  Twill, Needle, Scalloped Border Punch, Brush, Watercolor Pencils, Crimper, Glue Dots