Spring is Almost Here!

Aloha, all!

     What a busy weekend I had – and much of it was enjoying being outside in some beautiful weather!  Yes, even in Hawaii, the seasons change, especially here in the rainforest where winter is our rainy season and there's definitely a chill in the air.  The change to spring is a bit more subtle than on the U. S. mainland; but change it is!

     Of course we have flowers year round, but it's still fun to remember the spring flowers from my years in Maryland and Virginia. Crocus, tulips, freesia, lavender, daffodils all cry, "It's Spring!" to me.

     But when it came to this week's Stampin' Up! Only Challenge, my desire to capture all those flowers in a greeting card had to be modified a bit.  You see, the theme is purples and pinks, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a pink or purple daffodil.  Now I understand that artistic license would have allowed me to color a daffodil one of those colors, but somehow I just couldn't make myself do it.  So, if you look closely, you'll see that the daffodil at the right end of this stamp isn't there any more!  Instead, I duplicated the tulip that's in the vase on the left.

     Here's what the original stamp looks like:

     A quick note before I go into how I rearranged the vases: I didn't think I'd ever want to use the sentiment attached to this stamp.  So I removed it from the stamp as I was mounting it.  I kept the sentiment and it's mounted on the side of the wood block (this is a single stamp that comes only as a wood-mounted stamp).

     Modifying the vase arrangement was fairly easy.  Explaining it here isn't quite as easy!  So I've created a quick step-by-step set of instructions for doing this with photographs illustrating each step.  Click here if you'd like a copy of that.  Once I finished the arrangement, I added in my own choice of a sentiment, Just Because from the Stamp Set, A Dozen Thoughts.  So pretty!

     Now for the really fun part of this project – the coloring!  I've been playing with my watercolor brushes a bit lately, and decided it was time to try them out with a Stampin' Up! image.  Vivid Vases is the perfect image for such an effort, so off I went to find my Watercolor Paper.  No way am I an accomplished watercolor artist, but I was pleased with the way the finished product turned out.  I'm sure I'll get better with practice. 

     If you haven't tried watercoloring with Stampin' Up! Classic Inks, here's a hint about how to use them to their best advantage.  With the stamp pad closed, hold it in two hands and, using your thumbs, press the top cover into the inked-up pad.  When you open up the stamp pad, some color will have transferred to the plastic inside of the lid.  Just lay the stamp pad out on your work surface and use the plastic lid just as you'd use your palette, adding water as you wish.  If you don't have – or choose not to use – watercolor brushes, the Stampin' Up! Aquapainter is a great alternative, and probably should have been my first choice for this project anyway!

     For this project, I used Elegant Eggplant Classic Ink as my purple (that's why the stamp pad shown is such a mess!), and Melon Mambo Classic Ink as my pink.  I also added in some Pear Pizzazz Classic Ink for the stems and leaves, and added some Pear Pizzazz Cardstock, embossed with the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder as a background layer. (Don't forget it's still Sale-a-bration time!  I got this embossing folder for FREE with a $50 Stampin' Up! purchase!)  I cut the watercolor paper with one of the dies from the Deco Labels Framelits set, and matted it with Melon Mambo and Elegant Eggplant Cardstock cut with the same framelit.

     To tie my project all together, I added a piece of Melon Mambo 1/8" Tafetta Ribbon.  This was definitely a fun project.  Oh, and don't forget to check out the SUO Challenges blog post this week – and even enter a Purple, Pink or Purple & Pink project of your own!