Have You Seen Today's SCS Sketch Challenge?

Late, late last night (or was it early, early this morning), I got two "comment notification" emails from Splitcoast on a card I had uploaded back in mid-November. I thought it was strange, since the card is so old, but didn't give it further thought. This morning, with bunches more new comments, I finally put two and two together and realized something was up. It turns out that my card was the basis for today's sketch challenge on SCS! What a nice surprise :)

I was planning to take today off from a new post (to give that many more people time to oooh and aaah over that sweet baby in yesterday's post ;) [just kidding!]), but of course, I had to play along with the challenge, right?

While making this card, I made a WONDERFUL discovery. The rest of you may have already figured this out, but for me it was very exciting. Whenever I want to edge my card stock in white, I always end up with a big mess. The white craft pad ink NEVER dries, it seems, and the heat tool will often cause ripples and bending and such in the paper. The white Staz-On, too, is messy, but worse is getting the pad ready to use in the first place (re-inking, waiting for the ink to settle, etc.)

Today, my ruby red dp and the ruby red card stock needed a little differentiation, and I was groaning at the thought of the white ink. I was just about to try the white chalk in the pastels (which I would have to dig to China to find) and then thought to try a white watercolor crayon. It worked like a charm. NO mess, no fuss at all :) Maybe a white colored pencil or even a regular white Crayola crayon would work, too. I'm also very curious to see if it might, maybe, could possibly (oh please, oh please) work to color the edges of photographs, cuz you know I'm just NOT goin' near my photos with a heat tool, kwim?

On a different note, remember my plea for help with black ink for acrylic stamps? Well, my Palette Noir ink pad arrived this week. I inked up a My Favorite Things acrylic stamp, stamped on watercolor paper, held my breath, picked up the stamp, opened my eyes, and .... ta da ... it was da bomb. Crisp, sharp, very black, and **did not bleed** when I colored it in with an aqua painter. Thanks again for all your suggestions. I've got a few other brands to try as well. One can never have too many black ink pads, right?

Stamps: Embrace Life
Paper: Ginger Blossom dp, Ruby Red card stock
Ink: Palette Noir, Groovy Guava, Ruby Red, Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Groovy Guava double-stitched ribbon, metal-rim tag, dimensionals, aqua painter, plain and scallop circle nestabilities (by Spellbinders), white watercolor crayon, sanding block