Cups & Succulents Watercolor Card

The Cups & Succulents stamp set by Simon Says Stamp was calling out to me to be watercolored. First I started out with a piece of Tim Holtz Watercolor Paper and stamped the cup in Distress ink. I had to selectively ink the succulent & flower to get all of the colors that I wanted on one stamp. It's so much easier to do this with the mini Distress ink pads as opposed to the normal, bigger pads.

Then I took a clean, wet brush and spread the Distress ink throughout the stamped image to color it in. After it dried, I spritzed it with some water in a Mini-Mister just to move the color around even more and make it look a little more "watercolor-y" and messy. 

I then brushed some water around the cup and added some Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean Distress ink to create the background. 

I flicked some of that blue Distress ink all over the card, then got out some Picket Fence Distress Paint and did the same thing.

Lastly, I stamped the sentiment (from the Hand Lettered Winter Wishes stamp set by SSS) in some VersaFine Onyx Black ink, and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

For the finishing touch, I added a few white enamel dots from My Mind's Eye in a triangular pattern around the sentiment. I cut the panel down to a teeny bit smaller than 4.25" x 5.5" and adhered it to a card base made from Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock.
I love how this card came out- I think I'll start doing more watercoloring on cards.

Thanks for visiting!  :D <3

-Erica Miskel






Supplies:

• Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock- SSS | IE
• Hand Lettered Winter Wishes- SSS
• Distress Ink in Pumice Stone- SSS | EH, Picked Raspberry- SSS | EH, Mowed Lawn- SSS | EH, Mustard Seed- SSS | EH, Tumbled Glass- SSS | EH, and Salty Ocean- SSS | EH
• Distress Paint in Picket Fence- SSS | EH
• VersaFine Onyx Black Pigment Ink- SSS | EH
• Simon Says Stamp Clear Embossing Powder- SSS
• Fiskars Paper Trimmer- SSS | AZ
• AdTech Adhesive- AZ
• Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock- SSS
• My Mind's Eye enamel dots- SSS
• Sculpey Craft Sheet- AZ
• Ranger Mini-Mister- SSS | EH
• Artist's Loft brushes- M

Heat Embossing + Distress Inks

Hello! Thanks for visiting! I am starting this blog because I love papercrafting (and pretty much any other kind of crafting/design related stuff) and I was inspired by Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire. I love watching their videos and reading their blogs, so I thought I would start one of my own!

Today I made a thank you card for one of my co-workers using one of my favorite background stamps by Hero Arts.

I started out with a 4.25" x 5.5" piece of Strathmore watercolor paper and blended some Distress Inks onto it with a mini blending tool. The colors I used are Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed, Tumbled Glass, and Peacock Feathers. I'm loving the mini sized distress inks! Then I used an anti-static powder bag and rubbed it over the paper before stamping my background stamp onto it with some VersaMark ink. I spread some Charcoal embossing powder from Recollections over it. (Yeah I know, Recollections...but their embossing powders actually work really well for me) :)
I misted some water over the background to give it some water spots. 
The next step was to cut out the center of the paper with a Lawn Fawn Circle Stackables die. The "Thanks" die is also from Lawn Fawn. For that, I die cut the sentiment, then stuck it onto a piece of scrap paper with some removable adhesive. Then I inked up the die cut with some VersaMark ink, poured the same Charcoal embossing powder over it, and heat set it. To give my "Thanks" embellishment a little more dimension I used a technique that I saw Jennifer do in one of her videos: I put a couple layers of clear embossing powder over it instead of using Glossy Accents. I then adhered the embellishment to my background using Multi Medium Matte from Ranger. I added the panel with some foam tape to an A2 sized card made from Neenah Solar White 110 lb. cardstock.

I like how it came out. Clean and simple cards are my favorite! Thanks for reading! Hopefully I will have many more crafty blog posts to come. :)

-Erica

SUPPLIES

Distress Ink Pad Mini Kit #8

Distress Ink Pad Mini Kit #1

Mini Ink Blending Tool

Hero Arts Tiny Flags Background Stamp

Lawn Fawn Scripty Thanks Die

Lawn Fawn Circle Stackables Die

3M Foam Tape

Recollections Anti-Static Bag

Martha Stewart Heat Tool

Ranger Multi Medium Matte

Neenah Solar White Cardstock 110lb

VersaMark Ink Pad

I couldn't find the Recollections Charcoal Embossing Powder, so I linked to some other black glittery embossing powder.

WOW! Black Twinkle Embossing Powder