FS573 - Hello, Happy Birthday!

Congratulations to this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper Karen (KareBear51)!

I chose two cards this week. First  this card:

I focused on Karen's:
-masculine feel
-dark colour with metallic accents
-diagonal sentiment

I changed:
-technique
-layout
-pattern of metallic accents

I cut out the new Stitched Plaid Cover Plate from A Jillian Vance Design with Catherine Pooler Smoke cardstock and then a partial one from MFT Stamps Sparkline Silver cardstock so that I could inlay some sparkly squares. I randomly re-filled the holes with smoke and sparkly squares for interest and texture.

I heat embossed a sentiment and popped it up using foam tape. Tomorrow is my hubby's birthday, so this is perfect for him!

Next, I chose this card:

I focused on Karen's:
-floral theme
-colours

I changed:
-technique
-sentiment
-no gold

Whenever I'm doing Kathy Racoosin's The Daily Marker 30 Day colouring challenge, I quickly find that I want to do something other than copic-colouring (I love my Copics, but this challenge is a great opportunity to push yourself outside your comfort zone!)

I thought about those kids' painting books where you just use a wet brush and I wondered about watercolouring using a stamped outline. I started with Ranger watercolor paper and knew that I needed to use inks that will react with water. I chose a couple of my favourite Catherine Pooler inks and inked up my stamp. Then I spritzed it with a fine mist of water to activate the colour and moved the colour around with a brush. . I was hoping it would look stunningly beautiful at that point, (like a new method for no-line watercolouring) but it had lost a lot of definition, so I just restamped with a black outline. I used Versafine because it's water proof.

I used: