Watercolored Best Thoughts

I had the day off to play in my craft room today but it was hard to choose what to play with first!

I finally decided to use the flower stamp in the lovely Hostess set, Best Thoughts.

This morning while eating breakfast, I was viewing cards in a blog hop for Catherine Pooler's newest online class, In The Mood. A special Mood Board was created just for the hop. Click on the image below to check out the wonderful creations in this hop!

Who wouldn't be inspired when viewing a Mood Board like this? Anyway, one of the cards shared by Heather North caught my eye:

To create my card using her technique I started with a 4 x 5.25" Watercolor matte. Using my MISTI and Versamark ink, I stamped the flower and then heat embossed it using Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder.

I taped the matte onto my craft sheet with Washi tape to stop it from warping.

I used a small paint brush to paint some clear water onto the flower. On my Tim Holtz Craft Mat I stamped some distress inks: Peacock Feathers, Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry. I dabbed the colors onto the flower, adding more water as needed to get an effect I liked.

Because I had gone out of the lines of the flower a little, I decided to paint a very pale background wash with the Spun Sugar ink. I heat set the flower and then painted the background and heat set it as well. I sprinkled a few water drops on but they didn't react as well as usual because I really watered down the ink so it wouldn't be so intense.

I made sure the whole painting was completely dry and then removed the washi tape. I then trimmed the matte down to remove the white edges.

I adhered the watercolor matte to a Whisper White matte using Fuse Fast. Using MISTI I stamped the sentiment using Stazon Jet Black ink because I wanted the sentiment to overlap the stem of the flower and because it was embossed, the only ink that would adhere to it would be Stazon.

I tied a sheer bow around the matte and then adhered it to a Bermuda Bay card stock matte. Finally, the whole thing was adhered to a Perfect Plum card base using Dimensionals.

To complete the card, I added a sprinkling of Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

I love the colors of this flower and the clear embossing seems to sparkle like the sequins! It is hard to see in the photos but the background really is a very soft pink color that really showcases the flower.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below!

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