Happy Birthday Rainbow

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamp's current challenge is to "Make it Colorful." They only ask that you use at least 5 colors (other than black and/or white) on your project. I figured, why stop at just five?! So I ended up using all 7 of the colors in a rainbow, in ROY G BIV order, around my card front.

My inspiration this time came from this post on Darlene DeVries' blog. She used Inktense pencils and water to create a rainbow effect. I basically followed her coloring technique exactly to create my card.

I started by cutting my panel of watercolor paper, and marked the center point. I lightly penciled lines going from that point out to the edges, to make sure I would have the right number of rays for the color pattern I used to come out evenly. Once I got that worked out, I erased my lines so they were just barely visible, then went over them with the Inktense pencils. I feathered the color out from the initial line into the rest of each section, to create a gradient. I colored every other ray first, to keep the colors from bleeding from one section into the next. Finally, I went back and filled in the remaining rays.

For my greeting, I used a stamp from this set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I stamped it with Versamark ink on black cardstock, then white heat-embossed it. I cut out the panel, and rounded the corners with my 1/8" Corner Chomper. I finished it by making a dashed line around the outer edges.

After my watercolor panel had dried, I rounded the corners with the 3/8" side of my Corner Chomper, doing the same to my card base. I felt the panel needed something more, like faux stitching, but was afraid to ruin all my hard work. So I started penciling in dashed stitching lines. I decided I liked the look, so I erased my pencil marks and went back with a black marker to do my "stitching."

I tried adhering a piece of black paper to the front of an A2 card base, to act as a mat for the watercolor panel. But I couldn't make it work out like I wanted. So I finally--and VERY carefully--inked over the front of a white card base with Black Soot Distress ink. Thankfully, I didn't get ink anywhere I didn't want it on the card! Finally, I adhered the greeting to my watercolor piece, and adhered the whole panel to the card front with foam tape.

I will be sending this colorful birthday card to Operation Write Home, so one of our military heroes overseas can send it to his/her loved one!

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' Challenge #13: "Make it Colorful"
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes"