WWC61 - Anything Goes!

It's time for another challenge and another "good-bye".  Our Watercooler Wednesday challenge is losing one of its original artists, Bev.  I know I'll miss her imaginative creations.

I love "anything goes" challenges.  It's one of those challenges which lets my creativity run wild and free.  There are no parameters to hold me down and force me to work within those guidelines.  Of course, if I'm not feeling super creative, I can always find another challenge such as a colour or sketch, and make a card using those choices as my "jump start".  Or if I'm busy with a workshop or creating make-n-takes, I can use one of them for this challenge.  It's fun to have so many options.

For some reason my creative "spark" went out a few weeks ago.  I've been fighting some sort of invulnerable "bug" that is, so far, leaving my doctors hunting for options.  Me?  I'm just getting tired of being unwell and, like I mentioned, have lost that "spark".  And so I put off making my card until the 11th hour, thinking that inevitably I would come up with something.  Well, I did.  But creating this card took so much longer than usual since I was going at it "sparkless".

Quite a bit of paper wound up damaged and wasted as a result.  May it rest in pieces.

The finished card has a base of heavy Whisper White and then a layer of Tempting Turquoise and another layer of Whisper White.  Using the Balloon Builders stamp set, I stamped a medium sized balloon on Watermelon Wonder cardstock with the same colour ink.  Then I stamped a large balloon on Tempting Turquoise cardstock with the same colour ink.  When the ink was dry, I cut each out using the Balloon Bouquet punch.  After covering each balloon with Crystal Effects, I put them aside to dry.

I took a scrap piece of Whisper White and used sponge daubers to make a wild pattern of colours with Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise and Watermelon Wonder inks.  Once that had dried, I cut out a "hello" and two stars.  I used a stars framelit to cut a smaller star from the centre of the largest star, leaving only a multi-coloured outline.

After using my punches to cut the corners of the Tempting Turquoise and Whisper White layers, I attached them to each other and used Tombo glue to attach the "Hello".  Then I used my stars mask and Stampin' Marker to add Daffodil Delight stars to the open areas of the  Whisper White layer.  After that, I covered the stars with Wink of Stella for a nice shimmer.

The balloons were added using Dimensionals.  The addition to the sentiment (from the Endless Birthdays set) was attached using Fast Fuse.  The stars were attached using Tombo glue and then several Rhinestones finished up the card.

It's a bright and happy card.  For the moment, it is just going into my stash until the appropriate birthday rolls around.  I hope you'll check out the other creations by our Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  And after that, feel free to link up your own card or creation for this week's challenge.

I also decided to link up my card for the Sunday Stamps Weekly Challenge which is all about rainbows.  My happy rainbow-coloured stars and "hello" fit right into that challenge, don't they?