It’s a beautiful morning!!!  The sun has been shining this week in Iowa and we’ve had some lower temps (still in the 80’s) but how’d it get to be July already!  EEK! lol

This is my first post for the Sweet Stop Sketches Challenge Blog.  I found this blog through a friend’s blog awhile back and tried one of Korin’s sketches.  I’m looking forward to the next three months creating with her sketches and posting on Saturdays!  Here’s Korin’s sketch we used today. We’d love to have you play along! Details on the Sweet Stop Sketches Challenge Blog HERE.  Join us!

I used Sunflower Rosie (check her out, she comes w/sentiments!) from LaLa Land Crafts…so very fun to color and add details to!  She is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and colored with Copic Sketch Markers.  All the E50’s for her hair,  starting with the lightest to color all the hair and then bringing in the other colors and then retracing back with the colors a time or two…I kinda lose track…until I like how it looks.  Rosie’s dress is the B90’s and Wgrays.  I used several yellows,  the green is YG00 and YG95,  the fence is the E40’s.  The background fence is from Magnolia of Sweden.

Enlarged photo…Rosie isn’t this big IRL…she is the size in the first photo…do you like enlarged photos?

I’m linking to LaLa Land Crafts Challenge blog…the challenge this week is to use “something new”. Easy to play along with this one! lol   Rosie is new and this McGill sunflower punch I’ve had a long time but  never used…so I’m saying a new technique??? lol  The punch works differently from most punches.  Normally you would punch a positive piece and use that but this punch gives you a stencil “look”.   I punched it randomly over the 5.25 in. piece of kraft card-stock.  Then punched 5/8 in. circles with an EK Success nesting circle punch from dark brown card-stock and glued them to the back side of each sunflower so the centers would be completely brown.  Mounted this kraft, punched piece on yellow Bazzill card-stock so the sunflower petals would be yellow.  I edged all the card-stock pieces with Van Dyke Brown ink (Nick Bantock from Ranger) and my ink blending tool.  Paper cord from JoAnn’s,  Scallop border piece is an EK Success border punch.  Buttons are from Lasting Impressions and I used the staples from the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher stapler for the centers. (some hand manipulation required) It’s a pain but I like the “look”! lol

Happy Independence Day! I always enjoy fireworks and am so thankful for freedom!