AAA Cards Challenge 256: another challenging sketch for me

Hi everyone I have to be honest for the most part I don't like sketch challenges, I'm not sure why as they should make it easier but I think I overcomplicate it in my head. For this challenge at AAA Cards it wasn't helping that the DT members that had their cards in the folder I loved  and was thinking to myself why can't I be clever enough to make a cool card like "them".

In the end I looked at the sketch and decided it reminded me of doing Bokeh circles/dots ages ago, so decided I would just go for it and see how it turned out. I surprised myself as I actually love the card so sometimes it pays to not think too much!!

I've used a stencil I received as a freebie from Taylored Expressions to do my base layer. It's part of a set of 4 called Holiday stencil strips.

I've used Shaded Lilac, Tumbled Glass and Bundled Sage Distress oxides to blend through the stencil as these colours seemed similar to the colours in the provided sketch.

Now my recollection of creating a Bokeh effect is to stamp directly on top with a white pigment ink, as I'm using a stencil I used a fresh rounded foam and smooshed the white ink into my glass mat so I didn't dirty my inkpad.

When you lift the stencil all is revealed:

I've then stamped with the smallest circle stamp from my Watercolor Shapes (SU!) first with the ink and then with the pigment ink. When dry I added a few sentiments from my Circle Sayings stamp set (SSS) with Versafine ink.

I'm really rapt how it all turned out if I'm honest, sometimes it is good to challenge yourself and go with the flow.

Do check out the other "cool cards" from the DT and I hope you give the challenge a go, you too may surprise yourself!

✿Karen✿