I’m delighted to be joining Altenew today to celebrate their 4th anniversary. This post is part of a fun blog hop to celebrate, more details on the hop and prizes below. For now, though, I wanted to share this Wildflower Garden card which I stamped with watercolour paints. I’ve linked all supplies at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links used.
VIDEO
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I wanted to create the feeling of a windswept English cottage garden with a riot of flowers growing together. I thought of how I’d take a photograph of this garden with the focus in the foreground but then blurring as the flowers were further away. To achieve this look, I taped a piece of watercolour card to a board and wet it with clear water. I loosely applied a wash of green and blue watercolours for the background and when that was dry applied a slightly deeper layer of colour and used a piece of kitchen roll to mop up some of the colour and create a textured background.
I arranged a few stems from the Wildflower Garden set on top of my watercolour piece which I’d placed in the Tim Holtz stamp platform. I closed the door of the platform to adhere the stamps to the door and then wet the watercolour paper with a clear wash of water. I used a paintbrush and watercolours to paint the stems and then stamped them onto the wet paper. The watercolour did what watercolour paints do best and blended with the water to give the faintest impression of stems in the distance. I dried the panel and then stamped the stems again with the residual paint left from the first impression. As the paper is now dry the stems were stamped with slightly more definition, but equally still with a nice loose, unfinished look. I moved on to stamping a few flower heads in the same way – wetting the paper first and stamping with paint, drying the paper and stamping the leftover paint.
With all the wet work done, I removed the watercolour card from the board and placed it back in the stamp platform. From now on I stamped with watercolour on to the dry background, and this combined with more concentrated paint resulted in more defined stems and flowers for the foreground. I dried the panel off and then splattered with some of the leftover paint and also a good splattering with a solution of perfect pearls.
As a final touch, I used a brush and added in colour to the flower centres. I also used dilute colours to fill in gaps and add a few more impressions of flowers and leaves in the background. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but things which are further away are paler and washed out and so using a dilute mix of paint automatically tells the eye that these things are more distant.
I stamped a sentiment from the Wildflower Garden set in clear embossing ink on Slate card and sprinkled with white embossing powder before heat setting. I then used one of the Handmade Tag dies from Altenew, and the Mini Blossom die cutting machine to die cut an oval tag. I trimmed the watercolour piece to slightly smaller than an A2 card. I added foam adhesive squares to the back of the tag and strung it with garden twine which I then wrapped around the panel and secured on the back. I mounted the panel to a Neenah Desert Storm card base with a generous application of foam adhesive. I picked out a variety of toning sequins and held those in place with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.
ALTENEW FAVOURITES
I’ve been on the Altenew Card Design Team since 2016, and during that time, these are a few of my Altenew favourite projects. You can find the original posts (from top left) here, here, here and here.
Here’s a brief look at each of these cards.
I created this card for last year’s anniversary hop! I stamped and masked the daisies from the Spring Daisy set in clear embossing ink on watercolour card and then white heat embossed. I love the ease of watercolouring a white heat embossed flower – the little wells left by the raised lines of the heat embossing make for easy watercolouring.
This card uses the Build A Flower Magnolia set, I stamped it in clear embossing ink on Toned Grey paper. This gave me an outline to colour, and I chose my Prismacolor pencils for this one as they are soft and easy to blend. I kept them sharp with my favourite sharpener so that I could still get some definition into the colouring.
The Peony Bouquet set is one of my all-time favourites. I stamped several of the Peony Bouquet images in Antique Linen Distress Ink on watercolour card and watercoloured. For the sentiment, I kept it simple and stamped a greeting from the Sketchy Floral set in embossing ink on Ivory card and heat embossed with Rose Gold embossing powder.
Time for tea? My answer to that is always yes LOL, so the Vintage Teacups set was guaranteed to be a favourite of mine. I do love using random cups and containers to holding things too and what better than a Beautiful Day bloom. I think a card often becomes a favourite of mine when I feel a sense of achievement in making it, and this card is a case in point – I was delighted to be able to watercolour the flower and teacup in a no-line style.
BLOG HOP
Special Offer
FREE U.S. shipping with code HAPPY4TH or $5 OFF international shipping with code ANNIV at checkout. Offer valid from April 3rd until April 8th at 11:59 pm EDT. Not valid on prior purchases. Cannot be combined with other promo codes.
Prizes
Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners and one Altenew Academy class to 5 lucky winners. There are also 13 awesome companies/crafty friends who are celebrating with us, and they are offering the following prizes:
Altenew: 5 $50 Altenew Gift Certificates
Altenew Academy: 5 Class Spots
Jennifer McGuire Ink: 2 $100 Altenew Gift Certificates
Online Card Classes: 3 Class Spots
Simon Says Stamp: $50 Gift Certificate
Scrapbook.com: $50 Gift Certificate
My Sweet Petunia: Mini MISTI Stamping Tool
Tombow USA: 2 Dual Brush Pen Sets(10 Colors) and 2 TwinTone Dual Tip Marker Sets(12 Colors)
WOW! Embossing Powder: $40 Gift Certificate
Create & Craft TV: £25 Gift Certificate
Ellen Hutson LLC: $25 Gift Certificate
Butterfly Reflections Ink: $25 Gift Certificate
Amy Tangerine: 2 Signed Copies of Craft a Life You Love
Chameleon Pens: 1 Pack of 5 Chameleon Pens
Scrapbook & Cards Today: 1 Copy of Scrapbook & Cards Today Spring 2018 Issue
Be sure to leave comments by April 15th, 2018 at 11:59 PM EDT for a chance to win! 30 WINNERS will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the blogs listed below and will be announced on the Altenew blog on April 17th, 2018.
Now it’s time to hop along to …
Meghann Andrew!
Altenew
Kristina Werner
Lilith Eeckels
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Agnieszka Malyszek
Keeway Tsao
Terhi Koskinen
WOW! Embossing Powder
Debby Hughes – you are here
Meghann Andrew
Mindy Baxter
My Sweet Petunia
Laura Jane
Julia Altermann
Justine Hovey
SUPPLIES
You can find links to the supplies I’ve used below; click on the picture or shop icon to get taken directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. You can read my affiliate and product disclosure here. I genuinely appreciate your support.
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PIN ME
Summary of the project which gives all the views of the card in one photo :D I’d love if you pinned and called by on Pinterest :D
Such a pretty card. Thanks for sharing your favourites.
Love the artsy look of your card, and it’s always nice to see your earlier makes too.