Playing with New Supplies

Thanks to everyone who's commented or emailed me on my last post. Cancer sucks, but the thing that will get me through is the love and support of family and friends, including YOU! Thank you.

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Today's card gave me a chance to play with some new supplies: Simon Says Stamp inks, Hero Arts stamps, and Honey Bee deckle-edge rectangle dies. Because the watercolor paper was off-white, I used a base of cream cardstock...unusual for me, but fitting for the card. 

The butterflies come from Hero Arts' new set Critter Silhouettes. There's also an adorable snail in the set which will be awesome stamped on envelopes for mailing. 

Silhouette stamps invite several different techniques, but most especially spritzing. Ink up a stamp, spritz it with water, and see what happens. Some inks work better than others for this, and I wanted to see how the Simon Says ink worked. The results are interesting!

The bottom two butterflies use Iris ink, the darkest of the three shades I bought. The top uses Violet, the middle shade. The blotchy results work well, I think, with the silhouette stamps, but the images are not as soft and watercolor-y as, say, Memento inks look.

To add interest, I flicked slightly diluted Smooch gold lame ink on the the panel with a watercolor brush, and used Prismacolor metallic gold marker to edge the stamped panels to bring out the deckle, which was too subtle without the edging. I used to do this sort of edging all the time (especially on Christmas cards), and now I remember why!

The dogs are keeping us laughing, so here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.

"You has bapple and peanut butter. I has no
bapple and peanut butter. May I has some?"

Note how impishly happy Lily looks while Cooper is biting her face.
She knows that she'll get even and is looking forward to it.
For the record, she did get even.

The imp has worn herself out and is irked that 
I'm disturbing her. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan