A Salty Hello

A bonus challenge for "Hope You Can Cling To" is to create a "cured" card. Basically, use salt to create texture on a watercolor background. Salt??? Yes, plain salt can create beautiful visual texture! I got my inspiration for the general composition from this card by Laurel Beard.

I cut a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper to 4.25x5.5", & taped it on all 4 sides to my cutting board. I used my foam ink blending tool to apply Distress inks in Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry, & Wilted Violet. After spritzing it generously with water, I sprinkled coarse sea salt on my panel. Then I set it aside to dry. (Actually, after waiting as long as I could stand, I did zap it with my heat tool to speed the drying process. I'm just not that patient! LOL) When the panel was dry, I brushed the salt crystals off, removed the panel from my board, and trimmed off the uncolored edges.

For the greeting, I used the "Big Hello" die by Simon Says Stamp. I die cut it from the center of my panel, as well as six layers of purple cardstock. I made sure to keep the inner pieces from the negative space in my panel. After adhering the watercolor paper to a piece of white cardstock that I'd covered with Stick It double-sided adhesive, I adhered one of the purple die cuts in place. Next, using the purple die cut word as a guide, I stuck down the inner pieces of the letters. I used Ranger Multi Medium Matte to glue the rest of the die cuts together, finishing with my watercolor paper die cut, and glued them in place on the card front. Finally, I mounted my panel to a white A2 card base.