IO Design Team Challenge

Today I am posting something a little new and different. The members of Impression Obsession's Design Team decided to try a color challenge. We agreed to post a card on March 27th using some of our new stamps as well as the colors of lavender, blue, and green. I immediately thought of using my new hydrangea stamp!

The frame of this card was SO easy to make. I simply ran a lavender and a green piece of cardstock through an Accu-Cut machine with a "frame" die. It punched the center rectangle as well as made perforating marks around the frame. I used the lavender frame as the base of my card and cut the green frame down to size using my paper trimmer. I then glued the green frame to the lavender card with a piece of acetate in the middle to create a window.


I took a close-up picture of the hydrangea so that I could explain the coloring better. To create the hydrangea, I stamped the image onto Paper Cut's White Luster cardstock using Black Adirondack ink. I allowed the ink to dry and then colored the image with 3 colors of Copic Markers (BV31 Pale Lavender, G21 Lime Green, and B93 Light Crockery Blue). I colored 1/3 of the flowers with the lavender marker, 1/3 with the blue, and 1/3 with a combination of the lavender and blue to create a 3rd color. To do this, I touched the lavender marker directly to the blue marker to pick up some ink and then colored the flowers. I repeated the process multiple times to color the flowers a lavender/blue color. For the leaves, I colored the entire surface of the leaves with the green marker. I then went back and added a second layer of color to parts of the leaves. I love that I could get two shades of green even though I only used one green marker.

After all the coloring, I cut out the flower and attached it over the acetate. I did not glue the entire flower because I didn't want the glue to through the acetate. Instead, I simply glued the parts of the hydrangea that touched cardstock instead of the plastic. It wasn't a lot of glue, but it was enough to hold the flower down.


I took another picture of the inside of the card to show that the saying was stamped on the inside of the card. Although the "thank you" is stamped on the inside, it shows through the acetate window when the card is closed.

I also wanted to point out another cool aspect of the Copic markers. Some people don't like the fact that Copics bleed through cardstock when you color with them. However, in this case, the "bleeding" was a great effect for my card. When you open the card, you can see a muted version of the hydrangea instead of boring white cardstock in the shape of a hydrangea. I wish I could say I planned this effect, but it wasn't until I opened the card and said, "hey, cool" did I realize that Copics were a good choice.

I LOVED participating in this challenge. I enjoy seeing what the other design team members make. We have a lot of the same stamps, but we all have different styles. I often find myself asking, "why didn't I think of that?" when I see what other people did with the stamps.

I hope you will check out the other design team blogs to see their takes on this color challenge. Julie, Penny, Tina, Daniela, and Kelli all agreed to post cards. If you visit their sites and don't see a card, be sure to check back. We all live in different time zones and countries, and I don't know when everyone will post.

Feel free to leave us comments. We would love to know what you think of the challenge! If you post a lavender, blue, and green card of your own online, please leave me a link in the comments section. I would love to see your creation!