the white room challenge.

Is anyone out there a huge fan of HGTV (Home and Garden TV channel), like I am? One of my very favorite shows is called "Design Star". On this show several home decorating designers compete in challenges to see who will win their own show on the network. I love watching this show because the artists always have terrific ideas for decorating, color, and making unique things out of something ordinary. It really inspires me, even in my paper crafting.

One of the challenges I love every season on this show is called "The WHITE ROOM Challenge". Each designer gets their own blank white room to work with and a few basic supplies, like a small sofa and table. I thought it would be fun to take this idea, and use a blank white piece of cardstock to show you how you can transform it into something wonderful!

I started with a piece of white cardstock for each card, and set out to use my Clear Stamps from Pink Paislee's Indigo Bleu line. On the first card, I stamped with the doily image from the stamp set onto white cardstock in a random fashion.
Next, I heat-embossed the images with white embossing powder.

Now comes the fun part....adding color. I used a reinker called Aqua Mist by Papertrey Ink and a little bit of water to paint over the embossed images. I thought it would make it more interesting to do a stripe pattern, so I used a ruler and drew stripes with my paintbrush. Some of the greenish-blue color you see here is just because my paint palette had a bit of yellow paint on it when I was making my card. (I have since cleaned the palette off for the photos.) To get a deeper color, use more reinker and less water. To get a lighter color, use more water with just a tiny drop of reinker. You can go back and add more color as you go, making it as dark as you wish.

Next, I let my paper dry and trimmed it down. It would be pretty on a layout, but today I'm making a card with it. I made a little banner next with a Martha Stewart scalloped circle punch, some Indigo Bleu papers and Indigo Bleu die cuts from the Chat Clouds, stitching them together with my sewing machine.

I tore a little strip of Jacquard paper for the top, and then added the banner. The seam binding was spraying with Mint Chocolate Chip Chalkboard Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels. The button is from Pink Paislee's Indigo Bleu - Boutique Flair Wood Buttons. Last, the card base was made out of Indigo Bleu - Calico paper.

It looks complicated, but when you see step-by-step the process, it is really fun and easy to try creating your own backgrounds!

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I have one more card that I used the same technique with. This time I used the little stars in the Indigo Bleu stamp set. Here you can see I have sprinkled the embossing powder over the stamps, but haven't heated the powder up yet to melt it.

I stamped them, embossed them with white powder, and then painted over them with a yellow reinker called Harvest Gold by Papertrey Ink. I added some of the die cuts from the Chat Clouds again and a teal patterned paper from the Spring Jubilee line cut with a Layerz Mat Stack 4 die. A TIP: use a permanent ink like StazOn to stamp over the embossed images, so it doesn't rub off. I used the Super Stars stamp set sentiment.

Just look how it comes to life with color!

I added a Pink Paislee Boutique Flair brad to a regular paper clip from my office supplies. I just put it through the bottom of the paper clip and opened up the prongs on the back of the brad. I clipped off the ends of the prongs, because they were showing a bit. The paper clip is then just slid onto my card!

You could use this technique for any themed card or layout. Hope this has inspired you to run to your scrap area and create something fun today. If you would like to play along, link me up to your project! Visit the Pink Paislee blog all this week for more "white room challenge" projects.

Supplies used:

STAMPS: Indigo Bleu Clear Stamps by Pink Paislee, Super Stars by Papertrey Ink
INK: Aqua Mist and Harvest Gold reinkers by Papertrey Ink, Mint Chocolate Chip Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels
PAPER: white cardstock, Indigo Bleu papers - Jacquard and Calico by Pink Paislee, Spring Jubilee paper - Shindig by Pink Paislee
DIES: Layerz Mat Stack 4 die by Papertrey Ink
OTHER: Indigo Bleu - Chat Clouds (die cuts), Indigo Bleu - Boutique Flair buttons, seam binding, paper clip, corner rounder.