Cupcake Inspiration Challenge 400th Challenge Celebration

I'm so excited to be part of the celebrations for the 400th challenge post over at Cupcake Inspiration Challenge. Huge congratulations to the CIC team for reaching this impressive milestone and thank you for the inspiration from the talented DT every week. I love the fun inspiration images, and try to play along when I get a chance. 

STAMPlorations are one of the prize sponsors for this great celebration, and therefore the STAMPlorations DT got the great chance to play along and show you our cards in the hopes of inspiring you to play along too. If this post inspired you to shop over at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA for 20% off at checkout (for more info see end of this post).

For the challenge, you can pick any of the previous CIC prompts for your inspiration (by the way you can find the inspiration images very conveniently on Pinterest here). I decided to go with CIC #307 - Spring. I was inspired by pretty much all the elements in the image - the beautiful pink-white-purple-light blue colour scheme, the flowers and the dragonfly. In fact, the dragonfly was a big part of why I was so inspired by this image as I only just got my hands on the new CUTplorations Dragonfly Layering Dies and couldn't wait to get to play with it!

I started by painting a background for my card using Gansai Tambi watercolours, drying between some of the layers and splattering on more colour. Then I added gesso through ARTplorations Happy Flowers stencil. Every time I get out my tube of gesso I feel like I'm entitled to call my card mixed media. Then I die cut the dragonfly using the Dragonfly Layering Dies. I also die cut the sentiment using the new Hello Sunshine phrase die. I absolutely love this sentiment die, it's perfect at this time of year as a reminder that spring is just around the corner and there is already hope of sunshine from time to time even on this rainy island! I used my Wink of Stella glitter pen to add some shimmer to the sentiment and the dragonfly, and before attaching the die cuts I splattered some more purple and pink watercolour onto the card for some extra interest. 

Card: 300 gsm Daler&Rowney watercolour paper, scraps of Stampin' Up Wisteria Wonder and Soft Sky
Dies: CUTplorations Dragonfly Layering Dies, Hello Sunshine phrase die
Stencil: ARTplorations Happy Flowers
Other: Gesso, Gansai Tambi Watercolours, Wink of Stella pen

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes. If you have any questions or problems, just let me know!