Tilda with Thistle

This card is for another sketch challenge, the Twisted Thursday #6, hosted by Shirley's2Girls. I was ready to punch, emboss, embroider, stencil, whatever, but the twist this week was a color challenge. In addition to the layout, you have to use eggplant, olive and rose. . . or some variation of those shades. For some reason, using the color purple is like pulling teeth for me and this is the second time in a month I've had to use it! 

  I ordered this Tilda stamp because my oldest daughter loves thistles . . . think of Mel Gibson in Braveheart and you'll understand why. I've not had the chance to color her in before this and I used, in addition to peach and rose for her cheeks and mustard and summer sun for her hair, eggplant and rose on her dress and olive and eggplant for the thistle she is holding. I like using SU reinkers for watercoloring objects and clothing, but I use SU watercolor wonder crayons for her face and such, less intense and gives a more natural look I think. 

Yet in all the time I've owned my SU watercolor crayons, I've never tried directly applying them to a stamp, spritzing with water and stamping on watercolor paper. I happen to own a Fred Mullet thistle stamp that seemed perfect for both the background and this technique, so I tried it out and I like it! I colored the thistle first with the eggplant crayon, added a bit of rose towards the bottom of the blossom and then used olive on the stem. Of course I decided to live dangerously and at the last minute add an embossed sentiment on the paper and as I was blissfully aiming the heat gun at it I noticed I was starting to curl the ribbon . . . not something I wanted to do. I share these ooops! stamping moments because its a great reminder that you are not alone. Even though I've been stamping now for five years almost every card has those oh no! elements and if you're lucky you can do a save. Thanks for looking. 

Stamps: Magnolia Tilda with Thistle, Fred Mullett lil' Thistle, Papertrey Ink Green Thumb (sentiment), Guidelines

Inks: Black, white craft, rose, olive (stamped off so they came out lighter), SU reinkers in summer sun, mustard, eggplant, olive, rose, creamy caramel and close to cocoa. 

Paper: Eggplant, olive, rose, confetti white, watercolor paper, Papertrey Ink guidelines

Other: SU watercolor crayons, aquapainter, random ribbon from my desktop, white EP, glitter, Fiskars threading water punch