Where Creativity Meets C9 October Challenge!

Hello, friends! I hope you're all having a marvelous weekend. Today, I'm here to share with you the new challenge for the Where Creativity Meets C9 blog:

Since I watercolor on basically every single card I make, I thought this challenge would be a breeze. I'm not going to lie, though, I struggled with this one for some reason. I challenged myself to NOT do flowers, since I would and do watercolor flowers morning, noon, and night, so I pulled out my non-floral C9 sets and tried to come up with an idea. Ahem. After two disastrous attempts that looked far better in my mind's eye than in reality, this is what I came up with:

I started with some watercolor paper. I like the bright, crisp white of the Master's Touch paper from Hobby Lobby (bonus-it's super inexpensive!), so I die cut the insanely clever dies from the new Christmas Cottage die collection. I could honestly have probably left them like that and done a simple and chic silhouette, but as this is a watercolor challenge, I thought I'd add some color to them. My next step was to stamp the die cuts with their coordinating Christmas Cottage stamps using Distress Inks. It left blotchy areas on the textured watercolor paper, but we'll fix that momentarily. I love doing this technique; it really makes me feel artistic, like I'm actually painting and not just coloring in the lines (which is basically all I ever do haha!). After I had stamped the trees and house with their coordinating stamps, I used my wet paintbrush to fill in the blotchy spots. 

For the snow, I wanted it to be sparkly and shimmery to emulate real snow. I mixed together a little bit of Pumice Stone Distress Ink, plenty of Perfect Pearls, and water on an acrylic block, then used that paste to color in where I wanted the snow to go on the trees, house, and snowdrifts. You'll notice there are two different shades of "snow" on the drifts; I first used a more diluted version to color the drifts and make them really sparkly, then added more Perfect Pearls to add some shadows. I love how this mixture is just opaque enough to give really good coverage over colors. 

For the background panel, I simply dabbed some Chipped Sapphire onto an acrylic block, then sprinkled in some more Perfect Pearls and water, then used a wide brush to watercolor the whole panel, adding more color to the top of the card. This card is SO shimmery in real life; you just can't capture sparkle like that in a photo! The lovely script greeting is from last month's Holy Night, and I couldn't think of a better sentiment to add to this peaceful holiday card. I simply heat embossed it with white embossing powder, then added some coordinating sequins in peaceful shades of grayish blue.

Now, for the challenge! The Where Creativity Meets C9 Design Team is challenging YOU to create your own watercolor card using Concord and 9th products! You have until October 29, 2016 to create your project and link it up to the challenge blog's inlinkz tool. It's worth it to enter.... not only do you get to have a blast playing with your C9 stamps, but you also are entered into a random drawing for a $25 gift certificate to Concord and 9th! Thanks so very much to our generous sponsors for giving such incentive to play along. :) The best entry will be offered a guest designer spot for the following month's challenge!

Well, that's all for me! Be sure to check out the Where Creativity Meets C9 blog, Facebook page, and Instagram feed. I can't wait to see all of the fantastic entries!!! Good luck!