Monday Card of the Day

This week I am card captain at the Enjoy Michael Strong Stamps Group.

Today's card features the smaller leaf from Michael's Cloisonne Leaves set.

My inspiration came from Karen Dunbrook's Leaves card. Probably the only similarity is that I used distress inks and a paintbrush. Does that happen to you? Being inspired and then going off on a tangent? I had fun with it so I guess that's the main thing.

I used some watercolor paper from my stash...not sure of the brand or weight, but it was a thinner type.

I smooshed distress ink onto my craft sheet and spritzed with water. Then I pressed the leaf stamp into that puddle of color and stamped with it. Used squeezed lemonade, fired brick and rusty hinge. The lemonade came out too light. After it dried I re-stamped with fossilized amber oxide right from the inkpad over the dried lemonade impression. 

For the background I smooshed scattered straw  and crushed olive in two spots on my craft sheet. Spritzed each with water.  With paintbrush I picked up the scattered straw color and applied it to the unstamped parts of the paper. I ended up blending both the straw and olive colors together with my paintbrush and applied that to the background and let it all dry.

I used my paintbrush loaded with crushed olive ink and water to flick spatters.

Then I embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. 

Stamped the sentiment in Versafine onxy black using a Stampin' Up set called Day of Gratitude.

Thanks so much for visiting! Hope you have a very blessed week!