This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!
Hi friends! I am back today with another project featuring some pretty new stamps from the Simon Says Stamp Sunny Vibes release, this time with a softer watercolored look for a festive birthday card! I really enjoy using Distress Inks for watercoloring, and as an extra fun bonus, all Distress Inks, Reinkers, and Oxide Inks are on sale for the entire month of June to celebrate 20 Years of Distress! I did some soft watercoloring in some of my favorite colors to create this festive birthday card. Let’s get started with the details!
I started my project by heat embossing the new Festive Balloons stamp set onto some Distress Watercolor Cardstock three separate times using Iridescent Lavender embossing powder. After embossing, I taped down the watercolor panel to my watercolor board to minimize warping, then did some wet-on-wet watercoloring with Distress Inks in shades of Picked Raspberry, Kitsch Flamingo, Wilted Violet, and Blueprint Sketch. To do this, I thoroughly wet my watercolor cardstock with clean water and a large paintbrush, then tap the mini ink pads onto my ceramic watercolor palette (you can just use a plate or glass mat if that’s what you have!) and dilute the colors with water. This dilution creates softer versions of the concentrated colors. I dropped the different diluted colors directly on the wet embossed panel somewhat randomly, allowing the colors to bloom into one another and meld to create lovely color transitions.
I heated my panel with my heat gun for a few seconds to make sure that the entire panel was dry, then used concentrated versions of the same watercolors to add some extra details to the embossed balloon images. I die cut the finished images with the coordinating dies. I also taped down another panel of the Distress Watercolor Cardstock to my watercolor board and used those same colors and wet-on-wet technique to create an ethereal background that matched my bunches of balloons. Once it was dry, I splattered the background with some sparkly watercolors, then trimmed it slightly and added strips of satin purple foil cardstock and white glitter cardstock on the right side to add a little bit of interest to the background.
After creating my card front, I die cut the detail layer of the new Birthday Wishes from some more white glitter cardstock, then added the shadow layer with vellum. I popped up the balloon clusters on the watercolored, splattered background with some foam adhesive, then added the greeting with a double layer of foam adhesive to help it pop from the background. Finally, I added a smattering of coordinating Summer Blooms sequins for extra sparkle! Such a fun and festive birthday card, easily customized for a more masculine color palette.
Well, that’s all for my project today!
Click HERE to see everything included in the sale, then add code DSTR20 at checkout to save 20% on everything in this category until 11:59 ET on 6/30/24!
Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!
Leave a Reply