Birthday Rose Corner Stamps and Dies

Hello everyone!  If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you know that I am taking a watercolor class right now, so I was very anxious to ink up this beautiful new set from Memory Box.  The Birthday Rose Corner Stamp Set is a large 6 x 8 Stamp Set and the main image takes up the entire front of a 5 x 7 card!  There is also a coordinating die for that large image. I don't keep top folding card bases on hand in that size, so I cut a sheet of Brutus Monroe's "Not Your Mama's #130 lb. Cardstock" in half horizontally.  Then I cut one piece down to a 5 x 7-inch panel and the other piece down to a 5 x 7.5-inch panel.  Score the longer piece at .5 inches, fold it over and burnish that fold, then use score tape to adhere the front panel (the longer piece) to the back panel along that 1/2 inch wide fold.  I like top folding tent cards so they can be displayed easier and that is a little trick I learned from Yana Smakula several years ago in one of her YouTube videos.  I don't have any 12 x 12 cardstock in a heavy enough weight for a cardbase, so this works fantastic.

Memory Box Birthday Rose Corner Stamp & Die Bundle

For the large image, I used Fabriano Artistico Extra White Cold Pressed Paper.  To me, this looks and feels identical to the Arches Cold Pressed Extra White Watercolor Paper.  You can only but the Arches in large sheets at a Craft and Hobby Store (like Hobby Lobby) that you have to cut down.  I love that the Fabriano comes in many sizes and it is the whitest 100% cotton paper you can buy, being even a bit whiter than the Arches Extra White.  I really enjoy the 5 x 7 blocks for my purposes.  If you want to get more serious about doing watercolor, you definitely have to get serious about the paper you use.  I have both brands available, but I do like the little bit brighter white of the Fabriano.  I stamped the image in Versamark and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder to heat set it.  It is harder to get a good impression the first time with the texture of the watercolor paper, so be sure to use a MISTI tool to do your stamping.  Also, because the image is so large, you have to move your magnet around, to be sure you got the whole image.

If you are heat embossing your image, be sure to use plenty of powder tool as the embossing powder does like to stick a bit into all that texture.  Be sure to check and sweep away with a small paintbrush, any stray bit of embossing powder before you start melting the powder.

I've been buying Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors a couple of tubes at a time for over a year and just created my first palette with swatches last weekend.  Right now I have 25 colors.  I have about a dozen on my wishlist that I'll get in a few weeks. But I have a great selection of colors right now.  I just need to fill in a few shades that I don't have.  Bleus and greens mainly.  I have Silver Black Brushes since I've been working on watercolor looks for a few years now.  I think most crafters prefer the Silver Black Velvet Line of Brushes. Until now, I liked using reinkers with a water brush or my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers.  The trouble with the Zigs is that they aren't lightfast and fade-resistant, so the color fades very quickly.  I was frustrated with that, so I've been waiting for the right time to make the change.  When the class came up, I decided now was the time.  *Ü*

This is just simple watercoloring of a really large, beautiful, image.  There are so many techniques and I'm also finding that I really love the very organic feel of wet on wet watercoloring.  My next lesson is No Line Watercoloring using some special ink called Fadeout Ink.  In another week or so, I'm sure there will be another card here on my blog showing my progress.  The class is "work at your own pace" and lifetime access, which is great for me. I know this is far from perfect, but it is perfectly respectable! I am anxious to show you other watercolor techniques as time allows.  I want to do last week's set, Wild Rose Stem, again using the wet on wet technique.  It's such a different look.

For this card, I had a little trouble deciding whether or not to mount the watercolor image onto colored cardstock, but the simple elegance of white on white is always beautiful, so I kept it very simple.  I always need birthday cards so I know this will be a set I use often.

The Daniel Smith Watercolors I used are Deep Sap Green, Diopside Green, Rose of Ultramarine, Quinacridone Rose and Moonglow to deepen the shadows.  I wanted to keep it to 6 or fewer colors and experiment with mixing some of my own colors.  Rose of Ultramarine will be a favorite for its Sugarplum color. You might remember that purple-y-pink shade is a favorite of mine.  Pink and Purple are my two favorite colors so this is the best of both worlds.  Add that little pop of gold embossing and it's heaven on earth for me.

I hope you enjoyed this project and that you might be inspired to try your hand at watercoloring.  This is a big improvement from last week's card, so I totally feel very happy with my result.  Watercolor is definitely not quick cardmaking, but I find it very soothing so I don't mind taking the time to do something like this.

Thank you so much for popping in today. You can find this stamp and die set at Simon Says Stamp!