Just Be Yourself for Twinkling Tuesday

It was my little guy, Jameson’s turn to be the Temporary Twinkie this week!! We chose an awesome book this time as an Inspiration  Challenge. In fact, we chose it all the way back at the time of our last challenge. We had to decide which to do and this one we saved for next time, this time!! He loves this book and asks me to read it all the time. I am including lots of photos of the book so you can see all the wonderful illustrations the Twinkle Team had to work with. In case you are new to my blog, the Twinkle Team was started by Jessica of the Whimsical Butterfly because her  daughter, Madelynn, was interested in creating card sketches. She was so eager, her mom built a design team around them. Other team member’s children wanted to play too so the Temporary Twinkie position was created. Each week, the team is inspired by a sketch, colour challenge or inspiration challenge from a kiddo. This is the second time for Jameson. Check out our last inspiration challenge HERE.

Please click on the photos for closer viewing. They should be good enough quality to read the text and appreciate the watercolouring. Here is a synopsis of the book Suki’s Kimono.

Suki is a young Japanese-Canadian girl who loves learning about her heritage from her grandmother. Her grandmother gave her a kimono and her first time wearing it was to a summer street festival where they ate traditional food, listened to music and performed a graceful circle dance with other dancers. When school starts in the fall, Suki insists on wearing her favourite thing the first day, her kimono and Japanese wooden clogs called geta, despite her sisters who say she will look weird, insist she needs something cool to wear and walk ahead of her all the way to school. The other children make fun of her too, calling her clothes funny and saying her beautiful, full sleeves make her look like a bat! When the first-grade teacher asks the children to introduce themselves and explain what they did that summer, not only does Suki tell the other kids about her kimono, geta and the festival, she even shows them the dance. The kids start out teasing her but as they watch her dance, they become quiet and even clap after she is done.

I decided to go with the obvious Asian theme in this book because I don’t use this gorgeous stamp often but I love it so much. I also wanted too try this tutorial for a no-wrinkle distress background. I LOVE the result! I used SU! night of navy, vintage violet, buckaroo blue and eggplant inkpads. I smooshed them on my brand new No Stick craft sheet and spritzed with water. Then simply press your paper into the wet sheet. Dry with your heat gun and repeat until you have the look you want.  TIP: Be sure to twist the pads to create circles or you will have straight lines on your paper initially. Then I sprayed the background with gold Luminarte Shimmer Mist. Wow, so pretty! I might try this on glossy paper next time and see how it goes. I watercoloured the gorgeous cherry blossoms. The background wash is a bit dodgy in a few places because I was working under a single 40 watt bulb using a waterbrush (not my favourite way to watercolour) with a baby and cat bouncing on the couch I was sitting on!! Still, I am pretty happy with it. I added some clear Spica pen to the centers but it didn’t show up very well. I tried using my pink Spica but it was much too bright and fortunately, it wiped off. I sure wish I had the NEW baby pink Spica!!  I cut the outer edge of the circle by hand because there are no Nesties that big but the center cut out perfectly with a Nestie. The gold edging is just a gold paint pen. I don’t even buy the Krylon one, just the Pilot version from Staples!

PLEASE play along! The whole team would love to see your work. Upload to your blog, PCP or SCS using keyword MTTSC25. Then link back to Madelynn’s Twinkling Tuesdays so we can all see your work! Be sure to visit all the TT members too and leave them some love! We all thrive on the comments you leave. Thanks!!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamp: UK, maybe DRS designs?
Ink: Stazon black
Paper: SU! white and eggplant CS
Accessories: Shimmer Mist, foam dots-Jody Morrow, Watercolour crayons-SU!, gold pen-Pilot, ribbon and charm-UK