Creating a Watercolor Background

Hello Everyone!

I don’t know about you, but am a huge fan of watercolors, and right now the watercoloring trend is really popular in the papercrafting/cardmaking industry.

I created this card using a lot of ink and a lot of water, with the My Favorite Things Color Challenge as the inspiration for my color palette choice. I love bright and happy colors, and this week’s challenge at My Favorite Things was very happy indeed! :)

Cutting a 3 1/2″ by 8 1/2″ panel from watercolor paper, I applied a generous coating of water to the panel; this will allow my colors to blend together fully. Coming in with some Tim Holtz distress inks (Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, Peacock Feathers, Dusty Concord and Festive Berries),  I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

Watercoloring tip: starting off with your lightest colors will allow for better blending and less “muddy” colors. As I picked up ink with my paintbrush, I made sure my brush was very wet and the ink was heavy. The heavy ink allowed for a stronger color and the large amount of water ensured that the colors blended.

Once all my colors were blended, I applied heat to my paper for a few seconds, and then came back with a spray bottle filled with water and moistened all those colors once again, also adding more color in places as needed. Once more, I applied a bit of heat to the paper, and came back one more time with water; this time however, I sprayed the water into my hand and flicked it onto the paper. Letting the water sit on my paper for a few moments, I then took a rag and blotted it back up, leaving behind some wonderful texture in the form of water drops!

On another piece of watercolor paper, I stamped the flowers from the Simon Says Stamp “Summer Garden” stamp set in Versamark ink before heat embossing them in white embossing powder. Once the powder was melted, I added some watercoloring to the flowers as well. I also heat embossed the leaves and stems of the flowers, and stamped the green leaves in Peeled Paint distress ink.

Stamping the “Thinking of You” sentiment onto my panel (from the Simon Says Stamp “Sending Happy Thoughts” stamp set), I heat embossed this in some dark purple ink from the Stampendous “Sorento” powder kit. I absolutely love the rich color of this embossing powder! 

I covered the centers of the flowers and all the water spots on my card panel with Glossy Accents to create the illusion of water actually “sitting” in the background. I love the way it adds some fun texture and dimension to this card without the added bulk! I also stamped the heart stamp from the same “Sending Happy Thoughts” set in various places around my panel.

Once my panel was completey dry, I adhered it to a card base cut from cardstock (measuring 8 3/4″ by 3 3/4″) and tied a ribbon around the top left and bottom right corners of the card.

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to join in on the fun over the My Favorite Things Color Challenge this week!

Happy Creating!

Challenges

This card is submitted to the My Favorite Things Color Challenge, the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge “Old & New” and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge “Something New”.