Inkurable Stampers Bookmark Challenge.

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying your weekend! Summer isn't quite finished here yet and it's extremely hot today, I have the air conditioner running as we speak.

I'm really running this Inkurable Stampers challenge down to the wire as the cut-off is at midnight tonight! I actually started it weeks ago, but got side-tracked and couldn't decide what I wanted to use for it. I started out by playing with different surfaces and mediums to use, but finally I decided on this one! I used some watercolour paper and wet it liberally before applying some Lumiere paints. I had to water down the paints a fair bit so that my stamping would show through, but hopefully you can still see the lovely shimmer of the paints in my photos. Just click on the photos for a close-up of the shimmer.

The stamp I used is a gorgeous peacock, one of my favourite images by Magenta Stamps. After my painted watercolour piece had dried, I used Black Onyx Versafine ink to stamp the peacock, I find it's the best for finely detailed stamps like this one. When the ink had dried, I used a gold gel pen and a Signo white gel pen to highlight some of the peacock. I layered my stamped piece onto some black cardstock, punched a hole in the top and added a purchased tassel.

I'm not buying many hard copy books since I got my eReader, but there was a 50% off sale at Angus & Robertsons stores, some of which are closing very soon, so I splurged and bought the type of books which can't really be read on an eReader (one's with photos). I seem to be turning into a hippy with the choice of books you can see in the above photo! No, not really, I'm just trying to live a healthier lifestyle since I've had cancer. I thought I had a reasonably healthy lifestyle before, but I'm finding out that it could have been better, and it's never too late to start!

I'd love to know what you're currently reading, I'm always on the lookout for a good novel! What kind of books do you like? I find myself drawn to a lot of suspense/serial killer type novels - James Patterson is a favourite author at the moment, and I have a lot of John Grisham and Stephen King books. I have quite a few unread books sitting on my eReader at the moment, but I think the next novel that I read will be 'Mao's Last Dancer', and no, I haven't seen the film yet! I also have a copy of Keith Richards autobiography 'Life' sitting on my bedside table....... and does he have some tales to tell!