Inspiration is Messy

Hey, y'all!  Have you ever started making something and it just WOULD NOT cooperate with you?  That was my first try at this card.  I chucked it in the trash and that's when the kid started making noise like he was done with naptime, so it took me two days to get this card made.  But, in the end, I'm fairly pleased with it.  And my fingers are multicolored.

All hail watercolor paper for the background!  I tried doing a rainbow effect with sponges and that part was kinda sorta okay, but then I tried embossing some flowers on it and that part was NOT okay, hence my trashing it.  So here's how I made the background on this card:

1.  Tried something different, hated it, wished I could tell it that it was a disgrace to the Empire in Klingon but my Klingon is rudimentary at best.*
2.  Start over with watercolor paper.
3.  Smoosh an acrylic ink block onto an ink pad (I started with the Melon Mambo I think), spritz it with water, and then smoosh it on the watercolor paper.
4.  Speed up drying time with a heat tool.
5.  Repeat ink-spritz-smoosh with the remaining colors, drying the paper in between.  The colors blend a little bit where they overlap, but don't get too muddy.  I did do the Pineapple Punch twice though, it got overwhelmed by the darker colors at first so I smooshed it a second time and that worked nicely.

*I'm not sure this step is necessary, but just in case it really is integral to the process...there you go.  Note to self:  take classes in Klingon.

Okay!  So then I had my rainbow-y background done, and of course the paper was a little wrinkly from being wet so many times, so I sat on it for a while.  Sounds weird, but I do this a lot.  I have an old pillow on top of my chair in my craft room, so sometimes I put a piece of cardstock under my leg and sit on it.  Helps flatten out slightly wrinkled paper, helps remind a card base that it's actually supposed to fold, and in this case it also helped make sure the adhesive was really good and strong holding the watercolor paper on the card base.  I put a LOT of Tombow on it because I didn't want it to go anywhere ;)

All that to say, yay rainbow inspiration!  And my inspiration came from the Global Design Project challenge this week:

Obviously I was inspired by the rainbow-type background, and my sentiment is also white on black.

I paired that with the Sunday Stamps sketch challenge:

Typically I scribble down challenges that I want to do in a little notebook and take that into my craft room with me; I craft sans computer.  So sometimes the finer details of a sketch get a little forgotten while I'm working--like my strip goes all the way to the right edge, and I put my flowers in different places, but I think the spirit of the sketch is still there.

And finally, don't forget the SUO Challenges floral challenge is still open:

If I made a card every day using a different current SU! flower stamp set, it would take me probably a month.  If I included all my retired stamps too...well, we'd be seeing flowers forever!

That's it for me today. y'all.  Cheers!  And don't worry about the ink on your fingers, it will wash off.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Bouquet, Part of My Story
Ink:  Pineapple Punch, Coastal Cabana, Melon Mambo, Gorgeous Grape, Whisper White
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, watercolor paper, How Sweet It Is DSP
Accessories:  Tailored Tag punch, Bouquet Thinlits, Dimensionals, white baker's twine, glitter enamel dots, white EP