Watercolor Wildflowers | By Laurie Schmidlin

Hi there!  I’m not sure what the weather is like where you live, but here in Montana it is still a snow covered, frozen tundra!  Ha!  Spring can not come fast enough for me.  While I wait, I thought I would bring some Spring like cheer indoors with some pretty stamped wildflowers!  I enjoyed creating so much that I made two cards to share with you!

My first card features some pretty pinks, bright yellows, and some fresh blue colors.  I just love how how effortless it is to create faux watercolor looks with the Watercolor Wildflowers set!

I stamped a sentiment from the Poppystamps Grateful Hearts stamp set and then splattered on some black paint.  For embellishment, I tied a twine bow across the bottom.  I mounted the top stamped layer onto a Chipboard Notecard using foam dimensional tape.  When using any kind of watercolor (or water in this case), I like to use a heavier card base like this one because lighter ones tend to warp.

To create the faux watercolor look, I started by stamping my flowers and stems using the Watercolor Wildflowers stamp set.  I used Distress Oxide stamp pads, but you could use any water based ink.  The important part is that the ink should react, or “run” when sprayed with water.  After my imaged were stamped, I taped the paper down on a piece of chipboard (for stability) using some painter’s tape.  This prevents the paper from warping too badly and causing the ink to pool.

This next step is where the magic happens!  I just lightly spritzed the paper with water.  I chose not to use watercolor paper so I was careful not to add too much water.  I didn’t want the images to continue to muddy so I immediately used my heat tool to dry the paper.

I noticed that there were a few places that images were still solid, so I took a waterbrush and pulled some of the color out.  You can tell the places that I did this as it has smoother lines than from the spritzing but I was still pleased with the result.

After all the water was dry, I again splattered the background with black paint.

I embossed a sentiment from the Poppystamps Grateful Hearts stamp set onto a strip of black cardstock using white embossing powder.  I adhered it along the bottom.  For embellishment, I sprinkled on some clear sequins.

I hope I have inspired you to give this very easy, but beautiful technique a try!

Thanks so much for joining me here today!

CL8112 Watercolor Wildflowers clear stamp set