Tie it Up #2

I sat down today to work on a thank you card for someone and I attempted a new technique which I saw in a U-Tube Video by Dawn Woleslagle of WPLUS9.  I hope I spelled her name right!!  I've watched this particular video a few times so that when I sat down to try it myself I could feel a bit more confident. Water-coloring is a huge trend right now and I have done a bit of it in much looser forms with my cards and card backgrounds in particular.  But to watercolor a flower in a way that actually seems realistic was definitely outside of my normal "box".  Dawn made it look so easy that I felt I had to try it.

I should probably mention here that I am not an artist.  I am definitely a crafter, and I am definitely creative.  But I have never considered myself artistic.  I can't draw or paint or do any of the things that would be considered "Artistic".  

Dawn Woleslagle is a wildly talented artist outside of the papercrafting world. So when she showed how to get a water colored look without having to draw the image first, I was all in.  For this technique I used a stamp set called "Pretty Peonies" designed by Dawn for WPLUS9.  It's a multi-layer stamp set designed to give you a realistic image by stamping three different color inks--light, medium and dark.  I stamped the detail image from the largest peony of this set onto Canson 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper using my Tim Holtz Distress Markers in Spun Sugar with a pretty small watercolor brush.  I just used the marker to ink up the stamp and then stamped it onto my watercolor paper.  Dawn showed that by pulling that ink with water and a very small brush, you can achieve this soft, realistic flower.   

I originally attempted this method with my regular stamping inks that I have from Stampin' Up.  However, the color of those inks is too vibrant and intense to get a good result for watercoloring using this particular method.  A more water soluable ink in a very soft color gives much better results.  Dawn used Worn Lipstick in the video that she made.  For the watercolored image above, I used 5 distress markers in Spun Sugar for the flower, Squeezed Lemonade for the center of the flowers, Shabby Shutters, Bundled Sage and Frayed Burlap for the leaves.  Most of the water I used was on the flower image with only a little bit on the leaves.  

    

So I've been thinking about making this card for several days and finally sat down to do it this morning.  Since I had only watercolored the one flower on a small scrap of watercolor paper, I had just enough to cut that scrap with the Stitched Rectangle dies by Memory Box, available at Simon Says Stamp. I continued with that same set of dies (it's a set of 7) to get the multi-layered look I wanted.  I used a 4 x 5.25 inch white card base.  The pink and white stripe paper is from American Crafts, the solid pink and the sage green cardstock are both from Stampin' Up.  The Green to Pink Ombre ribbon is from my stash and was perfect for this card.  The "Thanks" diecut is from Mama Elephant.  I have a few different "thanks" dies but this one is my favorite.  I didn't have any pink sequins the right shade so I used irridescent instead.  

I'm also going to enter this card in the "Tie it Up Challenge" over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge but there's already 244 entries including one other one from me! 

I'm wishing everyone a great day and a great week.