You Got This

Hi friends! I'm popping in today with probably the most "mailable" card I've made in a long, long time. Haha. Absolutely no dimensional tape was used in the making of this card! I love me some dimension with all the bells and whistles, but also admire and desperately hope to get better at a cleaner style, too. Sometimes it's enough to let the ink and paper do the talking, right?

This card started out with a little experimentation. After watching Tiffany's Arteza video review, I recently purchased the 96 count Arteza real color brush pens. I've been using my Zig clean color markers more lately, but was feeling very limited in the 36 colors I had. Not long after I watched the video, Amazon had a lightning deal on the Artezas for $60 and I just had to get them. With some rewards I had been saving for a rainy day, it brought my out of pocket cost to just $13, so it was a no brainer to give them a go. Here they are all swatched out with a water brush. 💓💛💚💙💜

My first attempt coloring with them was less than stellar. Once I realized I had printed on regular cardstock and not the smooth bristol, I knew what the problem was and had to give them another go.  Here I used a butterfly from the Lifted Hope printable that's free with the purchase of our Lifted Hope Die Set and colored with pinks and purples. Side note: if you've already purched this die set and would like the printable, just email me at info at vervestamps dot com and I'll send the link.   Okay, on with the art stuff... I will say that the results with the Zig brush pens is a tiny bit better. They seem to stay wet a little longer and one color blends with wet medium are better than with the Artezas. But the Artezas do blend well with each other and with water, so I found myself blending dark to light and then using the wink of stella pen to soften. The brush tips aren't quite as nice and I've had to snip a few stray hairs, but overall I'm really happy with my rainbow of new markers!

Once my butterfly was colored and cut, I wanted a fun background, so took the pens I had colored with and scribbled onto an acrylic block to do a watercolor background. I taped off a rectangle of watercolor paper, then started plopping on color with a large very wet brush. It was quite a bit of fun, but I wanted just a bit more vibrance so I plopped in just a touch of crushed grape dylusions spray at the end and love how it turned out.  Once it was dry, I flicked on some dylusions white paint and a bit of my leftover ink.

I had intended to use the sentiment from the printable, but couldn't bring myself to cover up that pretty background. So I reached for the brand new Coffee Talk 2 set I just picked up from Lil' Inkers Designs. It's got lots of fabulous coffee themed sentiments, but I went for the "you got this" sentiment, as it's been my mantra these past few weeks as I'm working towards the final days of Verve.  I've got another fun thing in the works with the Hope sentiment and that other butterfly, though! Just need to photograph it. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you've found a bit of inspiration here and have a fabulously creative rest of your day.

Enabler's List
Stamps: Coffee Talk 2 (Lil' Inkers Designs), Hope Printable (Verve)
Paper: smooth bristol, watercolor paper (Canson), basic black
Ink: laser printer, intense black (Hero Arts), Real brush pens (Arteza - Amazon affiliate link), Crushed Grape spray, white linen paint (Dylusions/Ranger), Wink of Stella clear glitter pen (Zig)
Accessories: Lifted Hope Die Set  (A Cut Above by VERVE)