To the Moon

Is the name of one of my oldest Altenew stamp sets and for myself almost the start of my fascination with ink blending with distress inks. I used this set for my Christmas card in 2015 HERE and I still love that card looking at it.

I'm really behind on my card challenges as it's full steam ahead at my place getting myself and my craft room tidy enough for 2 big virtual events I am about to participate in. I have tidied up lots of "junk" in my shelves which I don't know why I keep it, apart from you never know when it will come in handy but I really wanted to rearrange my stamp sets and give the companies I love their own fridge bin; some got 1/2 a bin, some got a whole bin, and some even got 2 bins. The majority are just in bins with a lot of other stamp companies. I wanted to make sure there was room for all the new stamps, dies etc. that are winging their way to my place. 

AAA cards has "circles" for their latest challenge plus the clean and simple aspect of their challenges. As always there are some fab ideas from the DT to inspire us. I worked out quite quickly I only had 2 stamp sets I thought I could use. I settled on my "To the Moon" stamp set as I think it's wow and then so many ideas. In the end my card is inspired by this video on the Altenew channel which is a perfect pairings video showing Jaycee pairing old and new to make something FAB, FAB, FAB. Jaycee uses To the Moon and stamped in a way I hadn't really thought about using it that way and then he watercolours some poppy flowers and makes a frame on one side of his moon, mounted all up on foam and placed on an ink blended night sky. His card is very dramatic with a lot of grey used (leaves, little flowers and the night sky plus the moon).

The first thing I did was stamp one of the moon images (there are 3 in the set to build layers) but I liked what Jaycee had done as he only used the stamp that had all the craters and bumps in it. I inked it up with my lightest grey ink in my Misti, stamped  then added the next grey down the bottom and blended out with small blending brush so no harsh lines, restamped, then added darkest grey ink down the bottom but a tad higher and again used wee blending brush so no harsh lines. Die cut out with a circle die. I don't own any wee flowers like he used but remembered my craft shop sent me a mini delight flower set in a "curved spray" for Christmas as a thank you.

I decided I would stamp it on some of my backgrounds that hadn't worked when I did my Distress Watercolor Pencil class with Jenn Shurkus a few weekends ago.

I was attempting to make a rainbow background here but didn't have enough pigment down on my media mat but thought this was a good place to start laying down some more colour.

One of the cool techniques we learnt in class was splatter with the Black Soot pencil, isn't it fab!

I then fussy cut out the wee spray, which was not that easy as thick watercolour paper but I did it.

I thought about blending a background but thought it might become too busy for a CAS card so went with splattering some black card stock with white gold watercolour paint to make some stars. I liked this sentiment but used some really old embossing powder which I've had for ages and I probably needed something finer but liked the pewter with my grey. I think that is all the process.

Supply List:
Stamps: To the Moon (ALT), Flower Delight (ALT), Lift Me Up (Your Next Stamp - sentiment)

Ink: Misty Coast (PFS), Rocky Slope (PFS), Smoky Slate (SU!), Versamark, Black Soot Archival (RNG)

Paper: Watercolour (RNG), White (Lavinia), Basic Black (SU!)

Other: Pewter EP (SU! - retired), white gold watercolour paint (Gansai Tambi), distress watercolor pencils (RNG), no. 2 round paint brush (Nuvo), 1mm square stamping foam (SP), circle stack die (HB)

Challenge: AAA #234

I have chosen my round moon for my inspiration for this challenge.

✿ Karen ✿