Lovely Lotus

Our Daily Bread Designs is having a color challenge this month. They posted a color palette, and challenged participants to create a card using at least 3 colors from that image. I went with light purple, dark purple, red-violet, & yellow. For my design, I went with Sketch #SC598 from Splitcoaststampers.com.

I stamped the "Lotus" image from ODBD onto a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper, in Hero Arts Charcoal ink. I wanted the lines to show, but be softer than a black outline. After cutting it with the largest of Spellbinders "Classic Ovals LG" dies, I used my Inktense pencils to color it in. My preferred method is to pick up the color from the pencil with a damp paintbrush, and then apply it to my paper. I layered my colors, until I got the intensity & shading I wanted. Once that had dried, I watercolored the background with Frayed Burlap Distress ink, to give a kind of "antique-y" glow. I then added some blue to the water with Salty Ocean Distress ink.

I chose 3 patterned papers from my scrap stash. I cut the red-violet pattern with a Spellbinders "Standard Circles LG" die. I cut a piece of dark purple cardstock to 4.25x5.5", and adhered that to my white A2 card base. Next, I mounted a piece of yellow cardstock, cut slightly smaller, to that. Finally, I layered my patterned paper pieces on top, and added my focal oval. I threaded white crochet twine through a purple button & tied it in a bow. I threaded more twine through 2 smaller yellow buttons, and knotted that. Then I glued my buttons to the card with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.