You're so special - Clever Dexter Challenge #13

Hello crafty friends! Today I am back with my 3rd contribution as a guest designer for the Clever Dexter challenge blog this month. This challenge their theme is "kindness" and I can't think of anything better than to send someone a beautiful bouquet of flowers. For this card I decided to use the Sketched Bouquet digital image from their sponsor AlexSyberiaDesigns.

I've always admired all of the gorgeous loose watercoloured cards and paintings I see, so I wanted to try and reproduce that but using my alcohol inks in place of watercolour paints. To start I printed out the image on a piece of Yupo paper, as you need a non-porous surface for these inks. Yupo paper is a tree-free plastic like paper made from polypropylene. However, because it is like a plastic you need to be careful when printing on it, as the heat from the printer can warp the paper a bit. So as soon as it comes out the printer I try to straighten it back to its original shape while it is still warm.

For the inks I grabbed a pinkish-purple, a green and a gold metallic. The flowers are more purpley than in the photo...it's a beautiful colour! Anyways on the larger flowers and leaves I added a drop of the ink, a drop of the metallic gold and then a wee bit of alcohol and started to blend them using my hand puffer ever so slightly on each flower and leaf, so they would be somewhat defined. For the smaller flower buds I added some of the ink and some alcohol to a ceramic tile as my palette (they are great to use, as you can just wipe them clean after you are done) and painted the inks on using a small paintbrush. Once I was done with that I took a bit of alcohol and started to blend out some of the ink that had blended out beyond the edges of the image...it just helps it to not be so white and gives it more of a hazy look to it.

Next I added some flecks of black watercolour paint and allowed that to dry. I popped up my panel using a piece of craft foam to my fog grey top folding cardbase. The sentiment is from the stamp set Versatile Vases from Altenew and was stamped using a black dye ink. All that was left was just to add a few clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and that's it!

I absolutely love how this turned out...the loose look of it is exactly what I was wanting! I definitely think I will do more of this style in the future and also with watercolours I think as well. I really hope that you have enjoyed my card for today as much as I did making it! I just love using my alcohol inks and the possibilities are endless with them.

If you haven't checked out the challenge yet over at Clever Dexter, today is your last day to enter and be in for a chance at a $15 credit to AlexSyberia's Etsy shop....she has some absolutely beautiful floral images! I have really enjoyed my guest spot with them over at Clever Dexter this month and working with these beautiful images...thank you 😄

Thank you so very much for stopping by today and spending a little time with me. I would love to hear what you think down below and to not miss out on any future posts become a subscriber!

I wish you all a very wonderful and crafty day! Thank you and until next time,

Michelle 💖