It's okay to be fickle isn't it?

After only a few moments looking at it on screen, I changed my mind & took off the paper strip and buckle from the bottom of the card. I was finding it distracting --- perhaps the pattern was just too busy, or not the right mood or something. So for now, I'll leave it blank - and maybe later on I'll find a simple sentiment to stamp there directly on the green dotted paper. The sentiments in the Summer By The Sea set are great, but they are not the right shape to add in the space I have (they are multi-line & rather skinny). I think I might try for a single word that spans the width of the card or something like that.

Summer By The Sea

For years and years I have absolutely adored this set from SU and I finally broke down and bought it a few months back (not sure really why I took so long). After all that waiting, the really sad part is that it wasn't until yesterday that I actually mounted them up and showed them some ink. Geesh! I really need to get more on top of these things!

The image is (water)coloured with Tombow markers and the designer paper is Close To My Heart Boom-Di-Ada from their Summer collection. It's funny, I struggled with the actual design on this card for quite some time. I truly believe that these images can stand almost on their own, and I didn't want to add anything that might detract from the image itself. I'm not totally happy with the final result, but it'll do for now. I have many more images to colour and mount.

Trying Something New

Now, I don't have anything ready to share just yet, but I just had to tell you that I spent some time this weekend playing with my new Tombow dual-tip markers and am officially loving them! I bought 12 of the available 96 colours and they are a truly a joy to work with --- I will definately be buying more of these! I played mostly with the brush-tip and was experimenting with watercolouring. What fun! I admit it took me a while to get it figured out, but I did manage to colour a few images that I was actually impressed with once I got the technique figured out. Those of you that know me, know that I tend not to use images that have to be coloured in and I often say it's because I'm lazy. Historically, my habit is to spend a whole lot more time choosing the image, and the embellishing/finishing the project than actually stamping or embellishing the image itself. I have seen tons of beautiful work done with hand-coloured images and was most appreciative of the time that it must have taken to create such incredible pieces, but quite frankly I was not willing to take on the challenge myself. I'm realizing now though that my avoidance of colouring was not laziness per se, but rather an indication that perhaps I just didn't have the skills or tools necessary to colour an image at all. But...based on my experience this weekend with the Tombows, I am ready to admit that I may be switching it up a bit in the future. While I am still by no means an expert colourer (and probably never will be), I now feel more equipped to take on the challenge. I'm hoping to post something later today that I pull together using one of my newly watercoloured images -- because quite frankly, if I don't do something with them, my husband will think I am out of my mind. He actually asked me what I was planning to do with them -- and commented that he hoped I wasn't just going to leave them all on the 9x12 sheet of watercolour paper that I was playing with. Perhaps I'll make him a Valentine. Stay tuned!