Beautiful You Watercolor Effect

      It is my beautiful sister-in-law's birthday and I need to make her a card. I wanted to do a watercolor effect card but done easily & quickly, without all the fuss of actual watercoloring. I wanted to use just ink pads with all my coloring too...easy-peasy. For her card, I used the Beautiful You stamp set together with the Wild About Flowers stamp set.

     I started my card by running my layering piece of Very Vanilla through my Big Shot with the largest stitched oval framelit. The oval cut-out piece is where I'm gonna be stamping and doing my watercoloring.

     

     I tried a few techniques to see what worked best for the watercolor effect. I tried stamping first, and then trying to spread the color with my aqua brush...that's a no-go. I tried switching to my blender pen...still no. I even tried it on watercolor paper...the ink simply just won't budge once it's down on paper. I next tried to stamp and then spray with a bit of water to help move the ink. This just warped my paper terribly so I decided to ditch that too. And then finally it dawned on me...why not ink my stamp and spray it with water before stamping on paper?! That way the ink is definitely moving and I'll have more of a watercolor effect. Perfect!

My inked stamp spritzed with water

Comparison of a straight-stamped image to a spritzed-before-stamped image

     After my first layer of Pool Party ink, I then moved on to Marina Mist and the smaller squiggle stamp to add depth to my watercolor sky. I repeated this technique for my grass using my Pear Pizzazz ink pad, as well as for coloring in her dress using my Fresh Fig. 

     I then moved on to stamping the flowers at the bottom of the oval. For that I used my Old Olive and Calypso Coral ink pads. For additional detail I just put white dots on the flowers using my white gel pen. Then I lined up my layering piece of Very Vanilla (with the oval opening) against the Calypso Coral piece and glued my watercolor piece right through the opening onto the Calypso Coral...this way I know that my oval piece is right where I want it to be. Next I just added some ribbon for embellisment.

     For additional dimension, I put foam tape at the back of the Very Vanilla piece before adhering it to my Calypso Coral piece. Lastly, I added my sentiment. And my simple watercolor card is done! 

     This technique was so easy and simple to do but with big results, which I love. I'm sure glad my experiments paid off! Here's hoping my sister-in-law likes her card! Well I hope you enjoyed my card for today crafters and I hope you all have a lovely day! See you next time!

PRODUCTS USED:

• Beautiful You stamp set
• Wild About Flowers stamp set
• Fresh Fig ink pad
• Pear Pizzazz ink pad
• Old Olive ink pad
• Marina Mist ink pad
• Pool Party ink pad
• Calypso Coral ink pad
• Calypso Coral cardstock
• Very Vanilla cardstock
• Tombow multipurpose glue
• Blender pen
• Stitched Shapes Framelits
• Big Shot