Artful Flowers

I sat down this morning to make a card for my sweet Mother-In-Law so that I can continue to "Share Handmade Kindness" in support of Jennifer McGuire Ink's November Challenge. Right now, I have a good supply of watercolor paper on hand and I've been wanting to play with some of my background stamps and my watercolor crayons.  I have the SU! Watercolor Wonder Crayons in Rich Regals, Soft Subtles, Brights and Neutrals.  These aren't available for purchase anymore, but if you want to try out something similar, try some Faber Castell Gelatos. They will be creamier than the water color crayons.

When I took the Watercolor for Cardmakers class, Shari Carroll did a class that used the Gelatos and I've been wanting to try my crayons since then.  I wish now that I had tried them sooner.  I love the watercolor backgrounds that can be achieved and created using background stamps.  I don't have too many of these -- only about five of them that I got at the Scrapbook Convention this year in August. Not all background stamps work for this type of background.  I have one that is stitched lines in leafy swirly patterns and that one did not give a very good effect. Any stamp that has a lot of surface area will work great.

I started out by laying my stamp with the stamping side face up on my work surface.  The particular stamps I have are all Cling Mount Red Rubber Stamps. Simon Says Stamp carries a wide variety of background stamps in their own brand and in many other brands -- 748 of them to be exact.  Next I took a Watercolor Crayon and colored directly on the stamp, trying to make sure that I had colored over every part of it. I have several small spritzer/misting bottles that came from Stampin' Up that I just love.  They are about twice as big as the Ranger Mini Mister and also a bit bigger around so easy for me to handle.  I keep various solutions such as Perfect Pearls mixed in water in mine and I have one that is just plain water.  I have a label maker and I always label whatever solution is in the bottle as I also have one that is Rubbing Alcohol so I wouldn't want to mix them. I misted all over the stamp with my water about a foot above the stamp and let that start activating.  I gave it a few seconds and then put a piece of watercolor card stock on top of that, then my largest acrylic block on top of everything.

My largest block is 5 x 7 as are my background stamps.  By laying my acrylic block on top, I am ensuring that the paper is in contact with the background stamp and the color over the entire surface of my paper.  The very light background in this card was achieved by a third generation stamp with paper to the stamp (vs. stamp to the paper).  The first and second generation stamps were also quite beautiful, but I had already water colored these flowers in anticipation of this card.  I felt that when I put the deeper concentration of color with the flowers it overwhelmed them.  However, I like all the variations of color I got using this technique so as I always do, I will save these experiments to use later. Also, when you lay the acrylic block on the top you don't have to worry about accidentally moving the paper and messing up your stamped image.

The hardest part of this technique for me, is letting everything dry so you can see what you really have.  As always, watercolor looks better once it is dry.  This third generation background didn't look so hot when it was still wet, but I love the end results.  It's there, but you might not notice it on first glance.

I've continued to explore the results of various watercolor mediums we studied in that class, so I had already "painted" my flowers from the Simon Says Stamp Watercolor Friendly Flowers for this card yesterday using Distress Markers, Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and Water Color Pencils. I knew that I wanted an arrangement of the flowers in something, so I sat down with my dies and tried to "see" something different than the original purpose, that I could alter to make a container for the flowers.  The pot or container is actually a mixing bowl from some old QuicKutz Revolution Cooking/Baking Dies that I got several years ago.  I cut off approximately the top third of the die to make a shorter container using my Score Pal to put a crease in just the right spot at the base of the bowl and a wider one at the top like many crockery style bowls and containers I've seen in the past.   I water colored it using Pumice Stone and Gathered Twigs Distress Markers.  I put a foam square in the very center of the bowl then gently curved the outside edges with my bone folder so it would appear rounded and put glue dots on the underside all the way around the rest of it.

For the greeting, I stamped the "Thinking of You" sentiment on a 3/4 inch tall piece of watercolor card stock and white heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp White Embossing Powder.  I used a SU! Pretty In Pink Ink Pad and just swiped it across the banner for some color.  After assembling my card I added a few sequins for just a touch of bling and mounted it all on an Ivory A2 Card Base.

I'll be linking this post over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog in the "Thinking of You category".  Thanks so much for stopping by, today!  I hope you have a great evening and I'll be back soon with another project designed to "Share Handmade Kindness".