Honeycomb Happiness Hello Chick

Happy Monday everyone! I have a card made with a few challenges in mind today:

I was keen to try out an idea I had for this week's challenge over at CASology where the cue card is 'egg' and decided to use the open sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches for my layout. I've seen lots of cards on Pinterest featuring no-line watercolouring this week, so wanted to have a go using the little chick in the 'Honeycomb Happiness' stamp set, one of a number of Sale-A-Bration stamp sets that is free with a £45 spend before 31st March. I will also be linking up to SUO Challenges where the team are featuring Sale-A-Bration products in their challenge this week. Here's my card:

How cute is this little fella? I think he is adorable! I stamped my chick onto watercolour paper in Sahara Sand, then watercoloured him using my aquapainter and So Saffron, Daffodil Delight and Crushed Curry inks. The key to no-line watercolouring is to make sure that when you stamp your initial image you use a light-coloured ink that 'disappears' as you colour in. Having painted his whole self, I then proceeded to cover him up! I fussy cut an eggshell, also from watercolour paper, then coloured it with my Soft Sky ink and adhered it over my chick so that it looked like he was just breaking out of his shell. Some shadow and a sentiment finished this panel. I then added a thin strip of Everyday Chic designer series paper along the edge, having coloured in the pattern with my Daffodil Delight and Crushed Curry Stampin' Write markers, before adhering to my Daffodil Delight card base with dimensionals. I really enjoyed my first attempt at this style of watercolouring and I can see me using this chick in lot of other ways too. He will undoubtedly be useful as Easter approaches, but he would also make a cute addition to a baby card. The one thing I'm not sure about in hindsight is the strip of dsp - I think it's a little bold for the rest of my card. 

Here is today's visual summary for easy reference:

That's all from me today; I'll be back tomorrow with a super cute project for this week's challenge over at Pals Paper Arts. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Honeycomb Happiness Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Watercolor Paper	Daffodil Delight A4 Cardstock	Everyday Chic Designer Series Paper	Aqua Painters
Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad	Sahara Sand Classic Stampin' Pad	So Saffron Classic Stampin' Pad	Daffodil Delight Classic Stampin' Pad	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad
Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad	Tangerine Tango Classic Stampin' Pad	Tangelo Twist Classic Stampin' Pad	Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad