Summer Crush Wednesday Week 4

Hello and happy Saturday friends.  Apologies that this post is late this week; we went away at the beginning of the week for a couple of days to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary and I've been playing catch up ever since!  Welcome to Week 4 of the Summer Crush Wednesday IG hop organised by my good friend Kelly.  The hop will run for 6 weeks (this is week 4) and we will have some fun themes and even some techniques I've never tried before!  If you would like to join us just use the hashtag #scwcardhop23 and we will find you (you can also see all the other participants of the hop using this hashtag).  This week is 'salt life' and this is a technique I've never tried before; water-colouring and using salt to create interesting and original backgrounds.  I hope you will give it a go as it's really fun.  

Here is my 'salt life' card:

here are some close ups of the salt effects:

and I had a small piece left so decorated the inside too:

I began by water-colouring my panel with my paints using pinks and purples.  I watched a tutorial on YouTube so that I knew what the process was when using salt and apparently the secret is that the paint has to be almost dry for the effect of the salt to be more dramatic.  I was pressed for time so blasted my background with a heat tool until almost dry and then sprinkled some regular table salt and some salt crystals onto my background.  Ideally I think you would leave it for quite a few hours or even overnight to react with the paint but again I was strapped for time so left it for 2 hours and then again blasted it with heat to make sure it was completely dry.  I then rubbed off the salt to reveal the reaction.  I was pleasantly surprised with the result and it looked really good.  I didn't want to cover up my background too much so decided to make a slimline card (which I don't do very often).  I die cut some flowers and a butterfly from black card and adhered them with liquid glue onto the water-coloured background.  The sentiment was a pre-made strip and I added that with foam squares.  A very simple card but I think it looks dramatic and perfect for a sympathy card.  I'm looking forward to creating more salt backgrounds in different colours.  

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Creative Knockouts challenge - finish the inside

Unicorn challenge - no design paper

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour challenge - ATG/option Christmas

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge - any occasion

Please pop over to Instagram to see what the other participants of the hop have created; we cannot wait to see what you create.  Don't forget to stop by again next week for more summer fun creating.  

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.  

Love and hugs, 

Card ingredients:

Sizzix/Tim Holtz - wildflowers #1 thinlits

Clearly Besotted - butterfly duo die collection (retired)

Gina K Designs - Mixed messages sentiment sheets

Gina K Designs - sentiment strips dies

Gina K Designs - so many sentiments (for inside sentiment)

Strathmore - Bristol smooth water-colour pad

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi water-colour palette