Clean and Simple cards 4 and 5

For my next projects from the "Clean and Simple" class I tried Jennifer McGuire's watercolor technique with Distress Inks. Here are the cards:

**Frowns** I must have chosen the wrong Distress Inks, as everyone else's look so much more vibrant than my own. You'd think it was my crap-ass photography, but no, they look like that in real life. Not thrilled with these cards.

I had bad luck with this card from the get-go. My clear embossing powder I used for the emboss resist had red specks in it. Don't know how that happened; I try to be careful about mixing powders. Should have used white. My paper trimmer kept chewing up the paper; I had to break down and swap out the blade. Now I look at it and see the left-hand spiral is not centered properly, and this was my second attempt. Sentiment off-center. Bah!

This card replicates Jennifer's chain of vertical circles, but with blocks. Saw another class member try this, and liked it. I used the "Hello" sentiment to echo the vertical expanse of the color blocks.

Not sure about the rhinestones but it's a done deal now. I didn't have any white pearls like Jennifer used, so I used what I had. Was surprised I had rhinestones to complement all of the colors. But how can I not have any white pearl embellishments? This will have to be remedied.

For the ink application, I used the felt pads for the Ranger blending tool instead of the foam ones. I liked their ragged edges more, although they do have a smaller footprint on the card. I also used my Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls spray, instead of Pearl, just because. It gave a nice gold sheen to the color blocks -- you can't really see it here.

Well, that's that. This technique was pretty messy, ended up with ink all over my hands. Am looking forward to trying the "simple embellishments" and "plain white" cards now! :)