Pastel Color Challenge

Happy Sunday! Hope you have had a great weekend so far! Hubby and I have been on the go since Friday so today is my day to rest and relax.

As you know Dare 2B Artzy starts a new challenge on the first Sunday of each month. The challenge theme for August is Pastel colors. I’m excited to share my Dare 2B Artzy Challenge card with you today so let’s jump into the details. I’ve included links to all of the products used in today’s card at the end of the post.

I was sitting around trying to come up with an idea for the Pastels Challenge. It was one of those occasions where my mind was mush and I wasn’t coming up with much in the way of inspirational ideas.  Sometimes when I’m not able to come up with anything for my projects, I rummage through my scrap bin. My scrap bin is one of those clear fridge bins, but it’s not too deep. It’s only about 2 inches deep and measures 12 x 12. I’m actually not too sure what you’d use it for in the refrigerator or kitchen, but I like it for my scrap paper and “musings” as I call them. My musings are really experiments that mostly didn’t turn out too bad (the bad ones end up in the trash). I tuck the not so bad ones in with my scrap paper in case I have a lightbulb moment and realize how they can be used. To make a long story short – this is where my card evolved from – the scrap bin.

A while back I had just receive my Distress Oxide inks and wanted to play with them a bit. I’d stamped one of my favorite Dare 2B Artsy background stamps called Swirl Background onto some water color paper and heat embossed it with some white embossing powder. I used my Distress Inks and smooshed them onto my craft mat and then spritzed the inks with water until they were pools on my mat. I took my cardstock with my embossed background and began pressing it into the various pools of color on my mat. I wasn’t really paying attention to the mixes of colors at all, just wanted to make sure the entire background was covered. I did heat dry the inks a bit and then added more on top to get a richer color. The end result was this fun, pastel swirled background. I didn’t have an immediate use for the background so it ended up in my scrap bin until I stumbled across it looking for inspiration for this month’s challenge.

Now that I had a background, I was inspired to figure out what Dare 2B Artzy stamps to pair with it. I just received the fun and funky Flowers for Mom stamp and die set from Dare 2B Artzy and thought they would pair nicely with my background.

I wanted to water color the stamps, but I was pressed for time one day so I thought I’d try a technique I saw another crafter do using Zig Clean Color Brush Pens.  It was a technique that I could use to get the look of water color without having to be too precise.

I started off with stamping the Flowers with my Versamark ink and sprinkling on some Rose Gold embossing powder and heat setting it. I picked out some of my Zig pens in colors that weren’t too similar to my background. Once I had a nice selection of colors the fun began. I started scribbling onto my embossed image. I did not try to to stay in the lines and I wasn’t worried about mixing colors or leaving a few white spaces uncolored. It was like coloring in elementary school. I changed up my Zig pens and scribbled in colors, over colors, etc. When I was satisfied with my coverage I used my water spritzer and just began wetting down all of the areas I had just colored. Once my paper was pretty wet I picked it up and placed it over a rag and began tipping it from side to side to move the color around on my flowers. I wasn’t too careful about the colors mixing; I just didn’t want too much pink to get down into my leaves. Once both of the entire stamped images were covered with color, I used my heat gun and dried it completely.

Once it was dry I was able to use the matching dies from the Flowers for Mom set and die cut the flowers out. It was important to make sure my flowers were very dry as the stems on the flowers are very delicate and I didn’t want to risk them tearing when I die cut it.

Now that my flowers were finished I needed to assemble my card. I started by using some 110lb cardstock that has the slightest bit of a pink undertone and cut it to A2 size and scored it. Initially I’d planned on using the whole background piece without die cutting it, but in the end I decided that it needed some negative space in between to break up the card front. To die cut it I used the Vertical Stitched Strips dies and placed them horizontally across my card front using some dimensional foam and leaving about a ¼ inch gap between each strip and the card base.

Next I added some dimensional foam to my flowers and placed them towards the top 2/3 of the card so that I would have room to add my sentiment at the bottom. I used the “hello” sentiment from the Flowers for Mom stamp set and stamped it onto the same cardstock as my base and heat embossed it with some Lindsey’s Stamp Gang Midnight Teal Embossing powder to give it that beautiful teal tint in the light. I die cut the sentiment from a banner die and cut the end off of one side so that a bit more of the bottom background would show.

Finally I added some fun shimmery, iridescent sequins. I love how they catch the light and pick up the surrounding colors of my card. They’re a great embellishment to use for a flash of sparkle and color.

So that is my take on the Dare 2B Artzy Pastel challenge for August. Pastels are a challenge for me as I normally gravitate to bright bold colors so it was fun to step outside of my comfort zone this month with this challenge project from Dare 2B Artzy. I love how this card turned out and the soft colors are so pretty. I think I will definitely be doing more pastel cards and projects in my future.

Hope this has inspired you to create your own Pastel project for our August challenge. Be sure you share your projects and link them on to the Dare 2B Artzy blog. There’s an awesome prize up for grabs (free Dare 2B Artzy stamp and ink pad of your choice). In case you need a reminder, here are the challenge rules:

Dare 2B Artzy Challenge Rules:

– Our challenges are open to everyone; those entries featuring a Dare 2B Artzy image will get a second entry into the drawing! *Add D2BA to your entry title so we know you get a 2nd entry!

– Your submission must be NEW, no back linking projects.

– You must add a link to our blog in your post or mention us in your gallery.

– Leave a link to your actual blog post.

– You may enter each challenge ONLY 3 times.

We reserve the right to remove any submissions that do not follow the rules.

– Please turn off word verification so we can leave comments on your challenge entry!

 Most importantly….HAVE FUN

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