Texure - my (subtle) interpretation and how I finally mastered the spritzing tool

You know that feeling when you have so many ideas, and whatever you try just ends up being a total disaster and you find yourself with a craft room full of discarded bits, die cuts, dies strewn all over the floor and endless stamps spread all over the desk? If not, congratulations. If you do, let me know, I need to know I'm not the only one. Thanks. Anyhow, I proceeded from this state to eating my bodyweight in stuff I shouldn't be eating, and had a huge mug of coffee (only the second time in over three weeks that I broke my caffeine fast). Now my hands are shaking. 

Anyhow, I finally managed to produce a card which I'm not completely embarrassed about. However, I have to admit the inspiration for this card is not completely from my own head. I have borrowed it from this amazing card from Nichol Magouirk. In fact, this is a long story, but bear with me (if not, thanks for visiting, and do come back on another day when I'm not suffering from verbal diahorrea). Anyhow, I saw Nichol's gorgeous card way back last year when she first published it, and I was just blown away by it's amazingness. In fact, it inspired me so much that I went and bought myself the Tim Holtz spritzer tool as I wanted to create the beautiful backgrounds Nichol was showcasing. Long story short, I just couldn't make the spritzer work, at best I could get a few silly dots of colour come out of it, and that was it. So it just got forgotten. Today I dug it out again, as I thought I do have a PhD after all, and what else is a PhD than the ability to go back over and over to things that failed and eventually get them to work. I also thought that a spritzed background would be perfect for the Texture challenge over at Lawnscaping. Long story short, I ended up with the same problem, I couldn't get any colour onto paper. Then in my frustration I managed to somehow move the pen a bit in the spritzer which inadvertently made it pop into that tiny little groove in the nozzle bit that I hadn't noticed before. And then, all of a sudden there was colour aplenty coming out. I had finally mastered the spritzer tool!! I felt this to be almost as big of an achievement as my PhD...

So happily I spritzed the background in all blues, turquoises and greys I could find in my Tim Holtz distress marker arsenal. Great fun! Then I added some water and blue Perfect Pearls into a mini mister and gave it all a bit of a mist for that watery look and a subtle spark. These were my first two attempts at texture in this card, it's the visual texture of the splotchy background combined with the hammered texture of the cardstock. Then adding a bit more texture by cutting the background with a stitched rectangle die. Then for more texture, I double embossed the sentiment with black and glittery silver embossing powder. The die cut snowflakes also have lots of texture, first of all the sparkly and highly textured feel of the glitter cardstock, and I also built the snowflakes in two layers, the bottom being blue card for added texture in the form of height. Last, I created the multi-layered snowflake, and matted everything onto teal card using 3D foam tape. I hope you think this is far enough from Nichol's original card not to be considered plagiarism. And of course imitation is the greatest form of flattery is all I can say in my defence.

Anyhow, that's more than enough from me for now, thank you for reading all the way through to the end. I would like to link up with the following challenges:
Lawnscaping - Texture
House of Cards - Stitch it up
The Friday Mashup - Glitter 
Jingle Belles and Shopping Our Stash - Use something at least a year old (large snowflake dies, spritzing tool)
NBUS - Anything NBUS goes (the dark grey, blue and silver glitter paper, the deep blue cardstock, and that damned spritzing tool. Well, technically I've *tried* to use it before, but as this is the first time I've ever produced anything with it, I would say it counts as NBUS?)

Card: Coloured 240 gsm card in teal, Coloured 240 gsm card Vanguard Deep Blue, hammered 300 gsm white card, multiple colours of glitter card
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Joy to the Woods
Ink: Tim Holtz distress markers Blueprint Sketch, Mermaid Lagoon, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Peacock Feathers, Iced Spruce, Hickory Smoke, Cracked Pistachio, Tsukineko Versamark
Other: Black embossing powder from my stash, Papermania Tinsel Silver embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, Stitched Snowflake dies, Mini Snowflake dies