Pan-Pastel Dahlias

Happy Monday, everyone!  I had such a nice weekend - I shared Saturday with a lovely group of ladies (and one young gentleman) at my monthly card class, and met a new crafter when she happened to hear one of us mention "VersaMark" and came in to see what was going on.  On Sunday, friend and fellow-Coach Denise W. and I drove up to Colorado Springs to my up-line's team meeting where we shared ideas and learned lots of new things.  I'll be sharing the make-it projects and a swap from that meeting later this week.

I finally finished this card after my first experiments with Pan Pastels.  

I tried using a stencil for the background, but discovered the pastels didn't blend into the card stock, and there was a LOT of excess color dust that smeared when I tried to remove it. The color was vibrant, but as you can see, it looked pretty messy!


So I scrubbed away at the surface with a paper towel and succeeded in removing the excess color, creating a softer look but also smearing the white areas.
We were told at convention that the pastels would erase with any eraser, so I grabbed a pencil with a relatively clean eraser and started cleaning up the white areas.  It WORKED!!  But since I really don't want to work that hard on every card, next time I'll try daubing the color onto the surface instead of rubbing - or else start with gesso or modeling paste through the stencil to create the design, then pastels on that surface.

The dahlias were a bit easier - I just rubbed the color on.  The pastels blended very nicely, and I didn't need to worry about going outside the lines since I was cutting them out anyway.


I really like working with the pastels, but know I need more practice!  These will be available on July 1st on my website:  www.funstampersjourney.com/WILMAPAYNE.

Materials:
Dahlia Burst (SS-0203)
Rich Sorbets Pan Pastels (JM-0082)
Happy Sentiments (SS-0304)
Artful Wall Stencil (JM-0088)