Watercolor Wash Backgrounds

This week's PTI Make-it-Monday challenge got me motivated to get some cards done.  I have admired many beautiful cards with watercolor backgrounds and just haven't got myself into the swing of things. So, thank you Laurie for an excellent video and tons of inspiration.  Here are my cards.  This first card I used the PTI Peonies on Parade stamp set (goodness I had purchased this stamp set and not made a single card until today).  It was the perfect flower design for this technique.

This second card was inspired by a sample Betsy Veldman created a while back.  I saved an image of her card thinking to myself that I need to try something like that.  So here is my PTI What the Doodle: Paisley card.

 

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Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge

Bright colors and lots of flowers, what is there not to love about this month's Papertrey Blog Hop inspiration.  Here is the photo that inspired me.  Pretty blues and both bright and soft pinks, these are the colors I gravitate to naturally.

I wanted to create a "happy" card because looking at these colors makes me feel joyful. I used the Gathered Garden PTI stamp set which I am finding so versatile it is amazing.  My sentiment uses one stamped word from PTI Phrase Play #8 set and a die cut from the Wet Paint Holiday Die set.   I added a nice botanical embossing to my background blue paper.  Here is my card of encouragement.

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Papertrey February Blog Hop Challenge

This month's Papertrey Ink blog hop inspiration is full of rich colors and touches of gold.  It is an elegant look that is quite lovely.  It took me a while to decide on a design even though I loved the colors and the whole idea of making a somewhat elegant card.

 My card was really quite simple as I took out my Make-it-Market: Garden Gild template and went for a layered look.  I die cut my leaves from gold metallic paper then used the Inspired: love die and stamp set to add my sentiment.

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Papertrey December Blog Hop Challenge

After getting my recent order from Papertrey Ink I had to try a card with the Swan'sational stamp set and dies (I just love swans).  I decided to use the color palette from the pretty inspiration photo for this month's card Challenge.  First here is the inspiration photo.

 

I inked blended my background with the greens, yellow and pinks.  Then simply added the "Into the Woods" cover plate and the lovely swans.  A few bright pink paper dots to suggest flowers in the trees and a Happy Birthday sentiment finish my card.

 

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Papertrey October Blog Hop Challenge

Fall is my favorite time of year and the inspiration photo for this month's blog hop is right up my alley.  I found the colors and texture in the photo a beautiful jumping off point.

The washed wood background was such a perfect foil for the autumn colors that I tried to create that effect in my card.  I started with white card stock and ink blended some pale blue (PTI Spring Rain), Mustard  and  Orange (Stampabilities) across the card base.  I then got out my PTI Background Basics: Woodgrain Stamp Set and filled the entire background with woodgrain images stamped in grey.  I then cut a corner from the scalloped Note Card die from the PTI Make-it-Market: Don't Forget to Write kit and added it to the side of my card.  I then embellished the card with die cut shapes and a Bountiful sentiment all from the Make-it-Market: Color Pop Autumn kit.  Last I tucked a few sprigs from the PTI Fancy Foliage Details Die.

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Die Cut Stencil Shapes

I have been so busy I have missed participating in the Make-It-Monday challenges.  However, I just love the cards Melissa Phillips created with her die cut stencil backgrounds so I made time to give this challenge a try.  Truly one of my favorite techniques is ink blending so combining this with stencil die cuts I knew was going to be fun.  On this first card I cut out the leaves from the PTI Songbirds die.  I ink blended some mustard and orange ink in the background and then sponged some red lightly around the leaves. I then die cut a small scalloped square and embellished it with a few shapes from the PTI Make-it-Market: Color Pop Autumn kit.  Last I added my sentiment from the PTI Stylized Autumn stamp set.  I still needed something, so I added some texture with watercolor splatter.  I covered up my white shape with a bit a Press & Seal to keep it from getting any splatter and it worked great.

 

Since Melissa had done such a lovely card using the PTI snowflake and had to give that a try as well.  I used two shades of blue in my background working around the snowflake die cut.  I added just a few small stamped snowflakes with grey ink.  I used the PTI What the Doodle: Snowflakes Stamp Set for the larger snowflakes.  The sentiment if from the PTI Inspired:Hope Stamp Set.

 

Although you cannot see it in the image above, I did add some sparkle to the large snowflakes by using a Gelly Roll Clear Star pen by Sakura.  It gave the card a bit of shine that I liked.  The picture below shows that additional a little better.

 

 

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SAF 2016: Masterpiece Inspirations

Such great works of art to choose from with this challenge.  I decided to try a card based of this painting.

I really was drawn to the blue background that made the flowers stand out.  So I decided to keep my card pretty simple and make use of some rich blue paper to support a group of flowers.

I tried to add some depth to the stems by added shading with Copic Markers but that did not show up very well in the photo of my card.


 

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