Happy Memorial Day! I hope everyone is enjoying the day whether you are having a get together or simply stamping. We had our big day on Saturday with the Graduation Open House! The family was here and we enjoyed a fabulous day outside. I laid around regrouping yesterday, reading and watching old movies. I hadn’t done that for a long time and quite frankly I was just plum worn out from all the cleaning and all the graduation activities from the prior two weeks. But, my baby is now a high school graduate!

I don’t often show a picture of the entire family, but here is a picture of Sydney, Kate, Me, Mallory and Lance.

I have decided today to devote as much time in the studio as possible. I am so far behind in getting things done that I’ve promised. Florence your card will be in the mail tomorrow. Girls from the Cincinnati retreat, I’m working on yours and just about done – they will be in the mail within the week.

When I checked in on Splitcoast last night the Try a New Technique Challenge was posted and I just couldn’t let this one pass by. It’s the Wet Watercolor Technique and we all know how much I love that one! You can check out Beate’s tutorial here. So I went to work this morning and came up with the card below. I have to say it’s a little difficult right now to find any type of floral stamp in my stash that has not retired and maybe I have a block about this technique, but it just definitely screams out for florals. I chose Heartfelt Thanks today because it had a solid image and an outline image (and it’s the only one I have left that is a 2-stamp set).

I used watercolor paper for both the image panel and the background panel. I colored the solid image stamps with markers and then dried the paper using my embossing gun. Then I colored just the flower image of the outline stamp with markers and stamped over the solid image. To soften the harsh white of the watercolor paper on the background, I misted it very heavy with water and using a sea sponge dabbed Cameo Coral on the wet paper. To take some of the color off then, I used a paper towel and just light dabbed up some color. Thanks was colored with marker, stamped off once and then stamped on the background layer. Heartfelt was colored with marker and then stamped with no off stamping.

Stamps: Heartfelt Thanks

Ink: Cameo Coral, Certainly Celery

Paper: Watercolor, Cameo Coral, Certainly Celery

Accessories: Ribbon, Brads, Sea Sponge, Mister

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday! My mother just called and I’m going to ride over to the cemetery with her to put flowers on my dad’s gravesite – after all, it is Decoration Day (as my grandfather used to call it).