Getting Inky!

Happy Friday!

Don’t you just love when the weekend comes back around? Today I have two really fun cards to share with you that showcase one of my favorite forms of adding color… watercoloring!

When creating the brightly colored background for this birthday card, I immediately knew I wanted to use the sentiment from Penny Black’s “Paint the Town” stamp set… they go together perfectly! The sentiment is stamped in some black ink, and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

The colors for this card are inspired by the current color challenge over at My Favorite Things. The distress inks I used to create the colors are Festive Berries, Mowed Lawn, Peacock Feathers and Wild Honey.

The layout was inspired by the new sketch challenge over at CAS(E) this Sketch.  I decided I wanted to add some balloons along the right side of the card. The balloons are created by watercoloring some scraps of paper in Peacock Feathers, Festive Berries and Wild Honey and die cutting them using the Simon Says Stamp “Celebration Time” die set. I unraveled a length of baker’s twine to create some squiggly strings, and tied them to my balloons.

I just love how festive this card is! So bright and cheery, perfect for a birthday!

Because the first one was so much fun, I had to create a second one! :)

This next card was created with the same techniques used to make the birthday card, and which I will have step by step instructions for at the end of this post. The colors I used for this card are Festive Berries, Worn Lipstick, Broken China and Spun Sugar.

I love the “Sketched Alphabet” stamp set by Simon Says Stamp that I just got… never used them before, so I went to town! Using the set, I stamped the word “love” in Peacock Feathers distress ink and heat embossed it with clear powder.

For a whimsical look, I wrote out the rest of my sentiment in my own handwriting using a red pen. I also used the letters to stamp onto the flap of this cards envelope (not pictured). The envelope was blue, and I stamped the word “love” in a light blue pigment ink for a tone-on-tone effect.

After my stamping was complete, I took the Simon Says Stamp “Tiny Hearts” stencil and some Ranger Texture paste, and randomly applied paste in certain areas of the stencil to create some hearts in select places of my background. Once dry, I covered the embossing paste hearts , as well as the “love” word, with some Wink of Stella clear glitter for just a hint of shimmer.

Folding the top left and bottom right corners of my panel for a bit of interest, I layered it onto my card base along with some pink patterned paper. I also added some faux stitching, some ribbon and a bit of twine to the card to finish it off.

This one is so sweet and would be perfect for a Valentine to someone special! ❤️

Creating the watercolor background

1. Mist the right side of your paper thoroughly with water
2. With a wet paintbrush, dip the brush into your colors and begin dropping it onto the wet paper. Be sure your brush has a good amount of water on it, to allow the colors to blend more fully
3. Continue dropping the colors onto your paper until it is mostly covered
4. Begin drying with a heat gun, pushing the ink around as you dry your ink. Dab at certain areas with a dry cloth to create an even more varied look
5. Once the paper is dry, wet your brush again and dip it into your colors; flick the colors onto the paper and dry with your heat gun
6. Dip your brush into some water and flick the water onto your paper. Blot up the water with a dry cloth to create water spots

Challenges

The birthday card is submitted into the current My Favorite Things Color Challenge, the CAS(E) this Sketch #106 challenge, and the Simon Says Stamp “Its a Guy Thing” Wednesday challenge.

The love card is submitted into the CASology NBUS (Never Been Used Schtuff) Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp “Inky Background” Monday Challenge.

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