Thank You--with Stitching

 I have been participating in Online Card Classes' "Watercolor for Card Makers" class since it started a couple of weeks ago. I have learned several new techniques there. While the interactive class is coming to an end soon, you can still register and get the class materials; just not interact with the students and teachers. I would highly recommend this class--or any of their classes!

In the class, Kristina Werner demonstrated using emboss-resist to create a watercolored background. Emboss-resist was not new to me, but I had never done it with watercolors per se, so I have had fun trying (this expanded version) of this technique.

For my card, I used this background stamp from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. Since the stamp is only 4x4", and my background was somewhat larger, I had to stamp it more than once. It was not very easy to see where I'd stamped in Versamark (a clear ink) on white watercolor paper, so I could match up the pattern, but I managed to do it well enough! I heat-embossed it with white embossing powder. When that had cooled, I used 4 colors from this watercolor set to create washes, which I applied to my paper. The embossed areas resisted the watercolor, which instead soaked into the surrounding areas.

For the greeting, I used this die to cut the word "You" from black paper. I positioned it with temporary adhesive over the banner I'd cut for the "Thank" word, and scanned that in to my computer. I typed & positioned the word "Thank" in Photoshop, then printed that out on the banner (from which I'd removed the die cut). I glued the banner to the card front panel, and again temporarily adhered the die cut. I pierced holes through the "You," removed the pieces of black paper, and then stitched the word with black embroidery floss.

I matted the watercolor panel onto black, and then triple-matted that with pink, yellow, & lavender cardstock piecess, finally adhering it to an A2 card base. This is actually the last of my AnyHero thank you cards I will be sending to Operation Write Home for their Military Appreciation Month campaign.

I'm entering this card in Virginia's View Challenge #3: "Stitching."