Illustrator Challenge Hop

Welcome to this month's illustrator challenge hop! This month, Gina K asked us to use the newest sets we designed and draw inspiration for our cards from a favorite movie...with my set "Gifts from the Sea", that was a pretty easy choice: "Beaches"! Just about the queen mother of all chick flicks, starring the divine Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, this 4 hanky sob story (with singing!) about two women who meet on the boardwalk as children spans decades and coastlines, romances and breakups, beginnings, passages and endings. Something for everyone! (I haven't seen this movie in about 20 years but when it first came out I think I saw it about 6 times at the theater, and knew all the songs) So I HAD to use *pink* and make my card super girly, and use this very appropriate quote about what a good cry or a trip to the beach with your best girlfriend can do: "The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea".
Card stock is Pure Luxury White for the base, Turquoise Sea, Innocent Pink, and the white stamped mats are watercolor paper. This is the first time I got to use my new Sea Scape Impressabilities plate, let me show what I did to make the background and why watercolor paper works great for this. First I used the jumbo sponge daubers to add aqua and coral ink over the plate like a stencil. I started with aqua, making an undulating wave pattern than went all over the plate, then finished the open areas with coral, keeping the colors separate so they wouldn't get too muddy looking later.

Then I removed the stencil to reveal the white shell pattern and spritzed it a few times with water in a Mini mister until the colors blended as much as I wanted. Ink on watercolor paper bleeds a lot more when misted than it does on regular card stock and produces really cool, painterly results. (You can get a pad of this paper at any LSS.) I thought this would be a perfect beach look, as well as mimic tears falling onto paper.... If your paper gets too wet, dry with your heat gun a few seconds before continuing.

Last I used my speckle stamp from the set to add some spatters of coral and aqua dots over the the pattern. I embossed and stenciled the Innocent Pink with the same plate and added some raffia and a layer of Turquoise Sea I Cuttlebugged with Floral Fantasy for more texture. The quote is stamped on the fancy tag die cut, traced with a Quickie Glue pen and glitter to reference the sparkling salt! One stamped scallop shell with an adhesive pearl finishes the card. Hope this inspires! :)

Hope you will all join our challenge and play along, the winner will be the Spotlight Guest Designer for our next Gina K Release and receive ALL the new sets! For the specific details of the Senior Design Team challenge, please visit GinaK's Blog


Then, check out these designer's links for all the projects they have prepared for tonight's challenge:

• Jessica Fick



• Nina Brackett



• Theresa Momber



• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here, thanks for visiting!)



• Tami Mayberry



• Asela Hopkins



• Cathy Tidwell



• Lee Murphy



• Emily Giovanni



• Geri Utterback - our CenterStage Spotlight Designer