Mama Elephant Photo Inspiration Challenge

Hey there! I'm stopping in to share my submission for the Mama Elephant Photo Inspiration Challenge! If you have a bit of time, some Mama Elephant stamps and a hankerin' for some crafting', you should check it out HERE. Come join the fun!

Here is the challenge photo:

So nice and serene, right?  I have been pondering what to do for this card for awhile. I mean, I am just getting it finished a day before its due, I realise, but that's only because I wanted to really be inspired and try something a bit different. As I was going to sleep last night, it hit me.... SALT!

I love the photo above (mostly because I wan't a day at the spa!) and when I saw the big jar of salt rubs I thought I would try the water-colour salt technique for my card.

So, here it is:

I think the reason I thought of the salt is because of how I store my own salt: Yes! In a big jar! 

I gathered all my supplies. However, I ended up using some watercolor pencils instead because I couldn't find the right colour or coverage with the inks and paints I had on hand. (See the links below) But you can use any of the above. All you need is water-colour and some salt for this technique.

I decided to white emboss the sun rays from the Sunny Skies set so I had some water-colour resist going on with it as well.

Once you finish embossing, you want to cover your water-colour paper with paint and then sprinkle it liberally with salt. That's really all there is to it. Just one last step....Wait for it to dry (or use a heat gun, oh impatient one!) and then you rub off the salt to reveal its true beauty! What I love about this technique is it can turn out differently every time. Depending on the amount of colour and/or salt that you use.
The salt does a resist of its own and pushes the colour around which gives it a lovely pattern and texture. Here is my paper while it was drying:

And here's a bit of a close up of the card. You can really see where the salt resists the colour. I cut the full panel apart and added a mat of Lemon Tart card stock but only on the inside edges that face each other. I chose to pop up just the upper panel with dimensionals but leave the bottom panel flat. I stamped my panda bear from Pandamonium and the umbrella from Up and Away. I also added some colour to the umbrella with some Copics.
Honestly, I just die over these stamps every time I use them. Aren't they just perfectly designed? They just make me smile every time!

Now tell me, do you notice anything about the sentiment? Did you notice right away or after I asked? It's not stamped the way it was designed. If you look closely you can see the words are a bit mixed up. It's just a play of the brain that moves things around to make it make sense to you (and the way you know it should be read) and you don't even notice at first! Anyway, I liked how this order looked better as it makes the eye travel from left to right. I also opted to stamp my bear in black (it was grey the first go-round) and then I stamped the umbrella in grey to make it a bit lighter and not as catching to the eye. It kind of makes your eye track where I wanted it to: the sentiment, the bear and then the umbrella. Does it do that for you or am I crazy? The latter being a very very good possibility ;)

Ok. That's all for me today. I hope to jump in here later to show you the other card that I made that just didn't make the cut. I've been crafting like a crazy banshee and loving every minute of it!

Thanks for stopping in today. Hope you have a smashing day.
loves,
k

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