I Love Color and my Love Affair with Hero Arts Continues!

I love patterned papers.  I love to mix patterned papers but I have learned to love working with white paper and "doing your own thing".  Darlene at Darlene Designs has certainly been an inspiration in that respect.  When asked her favorite patterned paper or just paper, in general, she says she likes white paper because she can make her own patterns and colors.  She just does wonderful things with inks and do it yourself ways of making your own patterns and prints and I get so inspired by her.

And I love Hero Arts.  No surprises there....

So here's my card for today and I really had so much fun making it!  Interestingly to me it started out as a vertical card but at the last minute spoke to me to be horizontal!

I used 3 (count 'em THREE) Hero Arts sets.  But first I used summer limited edition Distress Inks: Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn and used a water color brush with a touch of water to paint directly to some watercolor paper.  When it was dry I stamped it with the small flower from Hero Arts Blossom Art. with some Archival Ink.  Then I used Kelly's TECHNIQUE at the Hero Arts blog to make my own buttons.

I've done this technique a long time ago but like many things these days had forgotten about it...so it was great to see a refresher.  I painted a few small pieces of watercolor paper with the Distress Inks and then stamped them with a little wavy looking stamp from the Hero Arts Untitled Postmark set.  Then embossed them with about 4 layers of clear embossing (the first time I accidentally used white embossing powder....well, duh....the watercolor was covered up!) and then tied some cotton floss through and adhered to the top of the flowers.

 I punched the butterfly out with a Martha Stewart punch and then painted it with the same colors giving a little "Op Art" effect.  I also embossed it with about 4 layers of embossing powders.

And last I stamped the sentiment with the awesome Hero Arts Live and Laugh set.

I'm happy with this little card because I used a few techniques I haven't used in a while...I love the color pops....it was so much fun to do!

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Hero Arts Make Your Own Embellishments

Simple Salutations Challenge 6 Butterfly

A Blog Named Hero Freestyle

Simon Says Stamp and Show: Paint it Up!

Digi Doodles: Challenge 120 Things with Wings

Happy Crafting!