Winnie and Walter 4th Birthday Bash - Four Challenge with Shay

How strange of me to leave it to the last 3 days of a challenge to make the cards??!! I think I must work better with pressure as I used to do the same with all my school assignments too, working all night the night before it was due and somehow still getting good marks. Very strange indeed!!

The month of February is Winnie and Walters 4th Birthday and they have so many challenges you can enter. This card is for the Winnie and Walter - Four Challenge with Shay. She is wanting you to design something with the number four as the inspiration. I decided to incorporate three challenges together to come up with this card:

I tried something new with this card. I've watercoloured a lot of flowers and leaves but never any animals, so this was a real learning curve. I'm kind of happy with the result but sure have a lot more to learn!!

I started off by die-cutting a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth CS with the smaller rectangle die from W&W 'Essentials: Audrey's Cutaways'. I then used the x's and o'x die (from the same Cutaway set) to create a grid across it. One of the other birthday challenges is the Grid Challenge with Keren so thought this was a good way to incorporate it into my card design.

I used my mini-blending tool and Distress Inks 'Mermaid Lagoon', 'Twisted Citron', 'Picked Raspberry' and 'Mustard Seed' to colour the four blocks. I then sprayed the panel up close with Imagine Crafts Shear Shimmer Sparkle Spritz (what a mouthful!) and blotted with a tissue so it has some interest and lots of sparkle.

I stamped four of the animals from W&W 'Welcome to the Family with Evelin T Designs' on the same watercolour CS with Versafine ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I then attempted to watercolour them with a mixture of Distress Inks, Gansai Tambi and Zig Clean Color paints. When they were dry I fussy cut them on and popped them on foam tape. The whole panel was then put on the front of the card with foam tape and I glued on some Neat and Tangled sequins for a bit more shine.

I'm also going to link this to the W&W Birthday Bash - Watercolour with a twist Challenge with Heather as she wants you to use another colouring agent along with your watercolour. I've used Distress Inks. And will also link to the W&W Die Cutting Challenge with Lydia.

Will also link to The Cats Pyjamas Challenge # 343 where their theme is:

I've got four more cards to link at this stage and only two more days to make some more. Its raining here AGAIN which means another day of no gardening work, which is so frustrating. However the good thing is that I can link all my W&W cards, make some more and play with all the new products that have arrived lately. Maybe rainy days aren't too bad after all.....

Take care
Shona