Let Your Light Shine

Good Morning! Today's post is going to serve a few purposes... 1. To introduce my entry for the Less Is More Challenge #223: One Layer Card with a Water Theme. 2. I'm also entering this card into CAS on Sunday's Challenge #58, Cheer Up Buttercup! 3. I want to tell you about these watercolor brush pens I found on Amazon while I was agonizing over the price of the Kuretake Clean Color pens...

Okay so first off... The Less Is More challenge this week required a one layer card with a water theme... and what is more perfect to make water than watercolor?! I used a lighthouse stamp that I bought in a big jumble of old stamps that needed some TLC so I have no idea where it came from or even how old it is but it worked well for this card!

I recently watched a video by Jennifer McGuire on using some watercolor pens to go over stamped lines and then fill in images with gradient color and so that 's what I tried to do here. The original stamped image was incredibly detailed though so I wound up "stylizing" the final result quite a bit.

Over at CAS on Sunday, the challenge is to make an uplifting card for someone who needs cheering up. As I was looking for sentiments to add to this card I came across a mini set from PTI called Lighten Up and decided on the "Let your light Shine" stamp... you know... "light"house and shine for someone who may be feeling a little dull... Okay, I'm sure you get it :)

Finally... I was on Amazon a few weeks ago looking at Watercolor Brush Pens and cringing at the nearly $100 price tag for 20 or so pens... and that's when I saw them... Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pen Set. I got a 20 pen set for $31.00 with free shipping (now cheaper) and while I have never tried the others I can tell you these pens are wonderful and so very fun to play with! If the price tag on some of them is making you a bit uncomfortable but you really want to try the Watercolor Brush pens, this set is a marvelous alternative!

Supplies Used:
Paper - Watercolor Paper
Stamps - Lighten Up Sentiments (PTI); Lighthouse stamp by Unknown maker
Inks - Antique Linen Distress Ink; Versafine Black Onyx
Other - Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pen Set (See link above)