Hugs!

Hello!
Samantha here with you today, and I'm sharing a card I created with that adorable little octopus!! So cute!

For this card, I wanted to play with cool colors, and I also wanted to challenge myself...to use purple. It's just 'that' color, you know what I mean? ...the color that stops all creativity in it's tracks for me...the color that won't match others...the color that I work with the least.

But sometimes it's good to challenge yourself to work with things that are intimidating, or out of your box. Because you know what? I really do love the way this card came out! Win!

To create this card, we're going to get a little messy!
-on a piece of white cardstock, swipe across the paper with Distress Paints.
- once dry, do this again and then spray with water and set aside to dry
- stamp that adorable sea critter onto watercolor paper
- watercolor with your favorite medium! For this card, I used Peerless Watercolors to get that vibrant rich color!

- I used a dark Violet, a wine-y purple, and a magenta pink for this octopus
- die cut the distress painted background with the banner dies and pop up onto your card base.
- adhere the octopus, allowing the edges of the 'arms' to hang off one side
- add some enamel chevrons

I used the ADORABLE Underwater Love stamp set for the octopus creature. The sentiment is from Your View. And those chevron enamel shapes are from both the Sending Sunshine kit stickers and the Pretty Cool enamel stickers sheet! Oh, and how could I forget the awesome Stacked Pierced Banner Dies?

As I mentioned before, it's not always easy to create with colors, techniques or shapes that are out of your usual style. I find that I need to just dive in and start creating, even if I'm not 'feeling' it, yet! Just stamp out an image and color. Or just try that new technique you've been thinking about! It doesn't have to work out perfectly the first few times, but it will get your head in the right mind set! 

You just need a little 'crafty warm up exercise' to get your creative juices flowing! Ha!

Next week is release week! EEEEEEEEE! We're all really excited to show you what we have for you!

Thanks again for stopping by!
~Samantha