Congrats - on Your Terrible Idea!

You know how good it feels when you come up with an idea that you think no one has thought of, and is just brilliant?

I had that feeling recently and was so proud of myself.

I love bubbles. I don't like regular water without bubbles so my water of choice is LaCroix - mostly the plain, but I like some of the flavors too, like coconut and grapefruit. But mostly the plain.

I also really like iced tea - that's what really runs in the veins of most Texans. And as you know, UNPOLLUTED tea with no sugar.

Since I frequently "cut" other beverages with fizzy water to cut the sweetness - like orange juice and cranberry juice, one day I thought - WHY IS THERE NO CARBONATED TEA??

In my mind's tastebud, it was glorious. The perfect drink. Not sweet, with delightful bubbles and BONUS - caffeine!

The next time I made iced tea, I made myself a bubbly tea.

And it. was. horrid.

I don't know why - because those things separately are delightful, just like fizzy water and orange juice are. And they are even better together.

But with tea, some horrible transmogrification takes place that just leaves you embarrassed and thirsty.

So yeah. There's an idea for the trash heap of history. Thanks a lot, dumb me!

I made a card to congratulate myself on this numbskullery. It's also for a Falliday Fest challenge - I can't reveal what the challenge is, but if you're coming here on October 9th, you already know! Welcome, visitors from the future!

I wanted a very splashy, bright background that had hints of fall but still the pretty blues of summer, so again I went to my trusty Schmincke watercolors.

I die cut a bunch of congrats sentiments from masking paper and adhered them to watercolor paper, making sure they were really stuck down with my bone folder so the edges were nice and tight. You'll want hot press watercolor paper to really make this work well, but remember - perfection is for serial killers - it's completely okay if it's not perfect.

Then I just dabbed primaries around the die cuts and let it dry naturally before removing the masks. I find that the heat gun can not only drive pooled water under the masking paper but it can also loosen the adhesive. It's best just to go throw out your gross bubbly tea while you wait for the air to do its work on your card.

Then when I pulled the masks off I was left with this fun background.

links to supplies

InLinkz.com

How fun is that? I thought this would be a great, cheery card for one of my team members for a job well done.

It is a sparkling season. Just one WITHOUT sparkling tea, thank you very much!

Don't forget - I have a new online class featuring Christmas Pines, and also a November class which you can get for free by participating in the buy 3 get one free DSP sale that starts tomorrow! Here are all the details.

Now go forth and have better ideas than I do!

Loveyameanitbye.