Edwin and his Balloon!!

Well, I got a text message on my phone yesterday before I headed in to work. Al made it to Calgary okay and let me know he would call later. When I got home from work, we talked on the phone. His flight was fine but when you start out a conversation with, "Now I don't want you to be too upset honey, 'cause it's gonna get fixed.", I tend to start to get upset!! Don't you?? It seems that something happened to my brand new laptop as it went through the x-ray machine at the airport and now the screen looks like someone dumped black paint all over it. Nice. But it's under a 3 year warranty and will be either fixed or replaced, no problem. Thankfully.

Today's card represents a bit of a discovery for me. I've tried the Prismacolour pencil and odourless mineral spirits technique several times before and found that I have gotten a little better but I get discouraged because mine just doesn't look like other people's awesome creations that I have seen. Why is that?? Do they have better mineral spirits, better paper stumps than I do?? Do I just suck?? Hahaha. Well, I think I have discovered the answer........it's the paper!!

I've tried using my Prismacolours on Whisper White, on Very Vanilla....I thought I had found the one with Shimmery White and don't get me wrong!! All these different types of cardstock have their specific uses, but I couldn't find the right one for Prismas. Then I was going through my friend Inge's lovely Magnolia blog and she almost always used this technique and her colouring is SPECTACULAR! I HAD to find out her secret!! Well, after reading through many of her posts, I found out that she uses watercolour paper!!! Hmmmm.....I honestly had my doubts that it would make a difference for me, but I tried it anyway!! Well, it was like an A-HA moment for me, it seemed to make sense!!! The watercolour paper takes the mineral spirits so much better than regular paper that repels liquids!! It allows you to blend the colour with the liquid SO much better!!! SERIOUSLY!! You've GOT to try it!!!

SOOOOOOOOO, here is a card I made using that technique with watercolour paper!! I stamped Edwin with his Balloon from Magnolia in Archival Versafine Black Onyx ink and used my Prismacolours to colour him in and blend. I don't have a lot of the pencils but I found colours that matched some retired SU designer paper along with Chocolate Chip and Brocade Blue cardstock. I used some Beary Patch chipboard and circle punches to create the tag along with a big white textured flower that I sponged and placed behind the tag. I added some CC corners and two little metal clips with some frayed grosgrain ribbon to finish it off!!

Now, it's not nearly as beautiful as Inge's colouring, but I finally feel like I'm on my way!!!