STAMPbaby blog hop

I'm enjoying the bank holiday Monday despite the abysmal weather. I've managed to stick to my good eating plan despite being home all day (it's so much harder not to eat goodies when at home all day, but I'm not complaining, I'm still enjoying they day off instead of dragging myself to work). In fact, I made a watermelon, quinoa and feta salad which was very good, I used to make it lots back in the day when I was serious about this clean eating business, but had forgotten all about it. The recipe is here if you are interested, although I have adapted it by reducing the quinoa, increasing the watermelon and skipping the honey to make it lower in calories (yes, I'm serious about getting back into all those lovely dresses I own but can't squeeze myself into even with a crowbar). Anyhow,  I had some crafty plans which soon went out the window when I saw the happy news over at the STAMPlorations blog. Shery has given birth to a baby girl and the ladies over at STAMPlorations have created gorgeous cards for the new STAMPfamily and made a hop of it for us to join in.

I created a pink background which went straight into the bin as it was absolutely horrible. Then I thought, why stick to just pink. This baby will be surrounded by art and colours, so I created a background with all the colours of the rainbow. I used one of Shery's own stencils and used watercolours to create the pastel background. I added some gold flecks as well (by the way, if anyone can recommend a good golden embossing powder, one that really looks like gold, I would be really grateful. The one I have isn't very golden). I stamped the cute Kanga and Roo as well as the eucalyptus tree from Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under in Antique Linen ink onto watercolour paper and watercoloured using Tim Holtz distress inks. I popped Kanga and Roo up using foam pads. Last, I stamped a sentiment from a Paper Smooches set, I thought black would be too harsh against the pastel colours so I used grey ink instead.

I would like to link up with the Shery's Finally Popped Hop, Shopping Our Stash (my second entry for this challenge) where the theme is Splish Splosh or use a wet medium, STAMPlorations August challenge where the theme is Stamp and Watercolour and Graph It Markers Challenge where the theme is backgrounds.

Card: 300 gsm white hammered card, Daler&Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters Down Under and matching dies, Paper Smooches A Little Lovin, Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge
Ink: Tim Holtz distress inks
Other: Gold embossing powder from my stash, Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies