Flourishes is hosting a new monthly challenge starting today! It’s called Bring Back Beautiful. Today’s challenge is called “Beauty in Color”.

As we kick off our Bring Back Beauty Challenge, we focus on one of the things that can evoke a lot of beauty in card making – COLOR! Pick your favorite medium – watercolor, colored pencils, markers, alcohol inks… the sky is the limit! Show off your color and join us! Link up your Bringing Back Beautiful Challenge creation here (link to post/thread) to enter. If you upload to SCS, please use the keyword BBB01. You have until August 31st  to enter! As we unveil our challenge for September, we’ll share our True Beauties – those card makers who wowed us with this challenge! Winners will be featured on the Flourishes Blog and will receive a True Beauty blog button to display proudly on their blog!

Make sure to check out the blogs of fellow challenge team members:

Becca Feeken
Cindy Coutts
Kathy Jones
Julie Koerber
Michelle Woerner
Yvonne Hagane

For the longest time I mostly used silhouette stamps because I didn’t think I could color. The more I play with my Copic Markers, the more fun I have and the more confident get. My challenge sample was also my sample for reworking the Faux Postage tutorial and shooting the Faux Postage Video tutorial. The small flower from Swan Lake was perfect for the Faux Postage Shape.

I printed the Faux Postage Template out on Neenah Solar White Cardstock, cut my mask out of Tim Holtz Mask Sheets (I really love those for masks you want to re-use, e.g. die cuts or the postage mask), stamped the image with Tuxedo Black Memento Ink and colored the flowers in with Copic Markers (R21, R24, R29, G82, G85, G99, B000, B01). I trimmed around the template with Fiskars Postage Scissors and layered it first on a 3 3/8″ square of Basic Black cardstock, then on a Scalloped White cardstock piece, cut with Classic Square Nestabilities.

The card base is a 4 1/2″ x 9″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half. A 2″ x 4 1/4″ piece of Cherry Hill October Afternoon Patterned Paper was adhered to a 4 1/4″ square of Night Light Katie October Afternoon paper after the squares edges were sanded. The layers were stitched to a 4 3/8″ square of Neenah Solar White Cardstock.  May Arts Crochet Ribbon was adhered over the horizontal strip and Green May Arts Satin ribbon was tied around that.

The Faux Postage image layers were adhered over the ribbon with dimensionals. The sentiment is from Flourishes Life Lines set. It was stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento Ink on Neenah Solar White cardstock and cut out with Petite Oval Nestabilities. The inner oval was colored with B0000 and B000 Copic Markers. Split Pea Kaisercraft Rhinestones finish off the image.

The inside of the card was kept pretty simple. A 1 1/2″ x 4 5/16″ strip of Cherry Hill Patterned paper was cut and embossed with the Jumbo Scallop Petite Borderabilities and adhered to a 4 5/16″ square of white cardstock. Turquoise Cotton Ribbon was taped over the top edge of the patterned paper before the layers were stitched together and adhered to the inside of the card.

Here is a video for the visual learner:

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles