Fun with Oil Pastels

Finally made it to our "local" stamp shop after living here for about a year and a half.  It is across the bridge on the other side of town, and somehow I just couldn't bring myself to get there other than my initial first visit.  It has been around for a while, and many of the cards I saw on display seemed to have a vintage feel or just weren't really my style.  Well, I finally decided to step out of my comfort zone and went ahead and signed up for one of their card classes.  So glad I did!  Here is one of the cards we made:

The background was created with water soluble oil pastels.  Our teacher, Karen, used a technique based on the work of artist Lynne Perrella.  The images were stamped and embossed (by the teacher to save time), and then we created the background by coloring with the pastels and smearing them around with paper towels.  I didn't know what to expect since I only had pictures of the samples to go by, but it was really fun to play around with this technique.  It's pretty much foolproof, and I didn't have to worry about staying in the lines like I do with my Copics.:)  It's also something I would never have tried on my own.  I'm looking forward to using this technique again.  I also met some stampers who live nearby and hope to get together with them sometime.  Fun day!  Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.  I believe the Eiffel Tower stamp is from Memory Box.  Sorry - don't know who made the others.