Two Watercolor Cards

I have been participating in Online Card Classes' "Watercolor for Card Makers" class. I created two more cards, both of which will be sent to Operation Write Home, to send to our military heroes overseas, so they can have something nice to write home on.

One of the projects, demonstrated by Shari Carroll, was to stamp a background image in Versamark and white-heat-emboss it, then use Distress markers to color in the spaces between the embossed lines. Well, I didn't have an appropriate background stamp, and don't have Distress markers (other than black and white). So I had to improvise.

I used a stencil by Prima, and smooshed Versamark through the openings, then heat embossed it with Recollections Snow embossing powder. I colored in between the lines with Inktense pencils, and activated the color with water, making the color lighter at the upper left of each section.

I die cut the "You" using this Simon Says Stamp die, and stamped the rest of the greeting from the coordinating stamp set onto a strip of white cardstock with Ranger Archival Jet Black ink. I inked the edges of the greeting strip with Salty Ocean Distress ink, and adhered it to the watercolor panel. I inked a piece of white cardstock with Salty Ocean, and adhered the focal panel to that with foam tape, before adhering the whole thing to an A2 card base.

My second card was inspired by another demonstration by Jennifer McGuire. I stamped an image from this stamp set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps onto the center of a piece of watercolor paper, cut slightly smaller than an A2 card. After penciling in a border around the greeting, I applied masking fluid to that section. Once the masking fluid set up, I put Distress inks in Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Salty Ocean, and Chipped Sapphire onto an acrylic block to use as a palette. I applied a wash of clear water over the center of the watercolor paper, then picked up the Distress inks, one color at a time, on my brush, and washed them over the greeting.

When the ink dried, I peeled off the masking fluid, and went around the border of the greeting with a black marker, to provide more definition. Finally, I adhered that with foam tape onto a piece of white cardstock that I'd inked with Chipped Sapphire, and adhered that to an A2 card base.