Inspired By...

Several months ago, I got one of those emails that brings a tear to your eye and terror to your heart. Karen from "Inspired By All the Little Things" asked me to be a guest designer. After I'd calmed down--and it took a few months--I was sent a number of inspiration photos and asked to choose one.  I then did something even scarier. I chose the one photo I had NO IDEA what to do with.

And then, as though the paper crafting gods knew I needed help, an idea sprang into my mind.

First came the color scheme plus the gold lights=watercoloring with gold embossed images. Second, I decided to do a large and small image the same=this turned into two large flowers from Altenew's Beautiful Day plus one small image from their Remember This. Third, I wanted to create a blurred effect near the bottom of the image=my attempt to heat emboss until the gold lines blurred failed, so I splattered water with a paint brush, poured embossing powder over the top, gently shook off most of the excess, and heat set it from the underside. I ended up doing this splatter, pour, and heat set process twice to get enough blur along the bottom with a few straggling blots around the rest of the image. I then added the sentiment, also from Altenew's Remember This set, using the more normal method of stamping with Versamark ink and using gold embossing powder over the top.

The final step was to run the image through an MFT dotted die cut frame, wrap gold twine around the panel, and mount it to a card base with foam tape.

I'm actually thrilled with how this came out. Thank you, paper crafting gods! And thank you to Karen Day and the rest of the Inspired By ladies for allowing me to stretch my creativity as a guest designer. I hope I lived up to the challenge!

Until next time,
Becca