smARTworks challenge

Our design team's bi-monthly challenge from Susan at smARTworks was to create magic with this set, called "Grow On." It's such a fun little set - the flowers lend themselves well to piecing and layering, and the variety of sayings make the set really versatile. Susan's giving away one of these sets on her blog, if you're interested in winning your own!

The team's submissions can all be viewed at the smARTworks site - funny how we all went "pink" with these! I had just gotten my first batch of Shimmerz, so this was the first card I used them on. I had already watercolored the flowers, so I brushed Pink Shimmerz over the images. Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, or in Susan's scan! Very sparkly.

The flowers are trimmed and shaped with a stylus, and 'popped' with foam tape for dimension. I love this layout for showcasing a smaller image - it really works well. And pink and green, well...you can't go wrong there!
I took a little plunge yesterday - I have been resisting Copics because of the price, but setting aside a little bit of money each month 'just in case' - then yesterday I read about Neopiko-2 markers, which are alcohol-based manga markers, as are Copics, but much cheaper (the downside is they are not refillable, but at that price - even other places at full price - still cheaper than Copics to replace). www.Oozak.com has their remaining open stock markers priced at just $1.00 apiece! They also have sets...I filled my cart up with 1 of each of the remaining open stock, then looked at the colors again...they were brighter colors that aren't necessarily in my daily palette, so I looked at one of the larger sets, and loved the colors I saw there...so...DH said, "Get what you'll use!" Love that. :) So, those are coming!