Did you know that July has been designated World Watercolor Month? While painting with ink mixed with water isn’t exactly what the originators had in mind, it’s as close as I get. I must admit that it’s been quite a while since I’ve picked up my Water Painters but this was the perfect excuse. So armed with the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set and a selection of ink pads I set to work. Admittedly it did take some time but I have to say that I’m delighted with the final result.

WATERPROOF STAMPING

I’ve learned over the years that the best way to be successful when painting with ink is to prepare. First I chose Shimmery White Cardstock. Unlike regular Stampin’ Up! card, Shimmery White can cope with water. Of course I could have used Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper but that has a textured surface that I didn’t want today.

Next I needed to stamp the sunflower and leaves from the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set. Once again I had to factor that I’d be adding water to my ink. So my choices were to heat emboss the images or to stamp using waterproof StazOn ink. Today I went with the StazOn in a beautiful Saddle Brown colour.

With these decisions made I stamped one large flower and three of the large single leaves and set to work.

In the end I chose six colours and pressed on the top of the closed ink pads. This made the foam pad inside transfer some of the ink to the inside of the lid. Then when the pads were opened I had a ready-made palette to work from. The only other tools I needed was a Water Painter and small amount of water in a dish to wash out my brush between colours.

TIP: I use a heavy glass tealight holder for my water. This way I never have to worry about knocking it over.

INK PAINTING IN SEVEN STEPS

I began with So Saffron ink and quite simply painted over the flower petals and the three leaves to give a light base colour.

Then I added some Crushed Curry ink to the flower petals working from the base almost to the tip of each one. I painted the flower centre with Crushed Curry ink too.

While that layer of ink was drying I turned to the leaves and painted them with Old Olive ink in the same way.

Then while that dried I turned back to the sunflower and added a little Pumpkin Pie ink to the petals and flower centre.

Finally on the sunflower I used Early Espresso ink to complete the flower centre and add some shadows to the base of some of the petals. That just left the leaves to finish off with a little Mossy Meadow ink..

Once the painted pieces were completely dry I cut them out using the coordinating dies from the Sunflowers Dies set.

SIMPLE LAYERS

Having spent quite some time painting my images I really wanted them to be the focus of my project. So I chose neutral colours and textures for the background and accents.

First I used my Paper Trimmer to cut and score some Early Espresso Card. Then I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create a card base.

Next, from the He’s the Man 12″ x 12″ Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP) I chose a simple light coloured pattern. This would also form the coordinating feature for the whole project and so I needed to cut three pieces.

First I cut a 2-1/4″ x 6″ piece and using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) fixed it to the flap of a Basic White Medium Envelope. Then I trimmed off the excess DSP with Paper Snips, using the edge of the flap as a guide.

Next I cut a 3/4″ x 5-1/4″ strip of DSP along with a 4″ x 5-1/4″ layer of Shimmery White Cardstock. Using liquid glue I fixed the DSP down the right-hand edge of the card, before gluing the layer inside my card base.

Finally I cut a 3-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ piece of the DSP and glued that onto the front of the card base up against the right-hand edge.

To complete the background I cut a 1/8″ x 5-1/2″ piece of gold card from the Brushed Metallic Cardstock pack. When attached with liquid glue this created a nice border between the left edge of the DSP and the Early Espresso card base.

A LITTLE MORE INK

It was only at this point that I remembered I still needed a sentiment. So for that I went back to the Celebrate Sunflowers Stamp Set and the Saddle Brown StazOn ink pad.

After stamping “thanks a bunch” onto a scrap of Shimmery White Card I fussy cut it out using Paper Snips. Then I cut some narrow strips from the edge of a sheet of Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals and attached them to the back of the sentiment.

I layered up the sentiment and painted pieces by fixing the sentiment onto the flower first. Then with Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the three leaves to the back. Finally I covered the rest of the back of the flower with more Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals and attached it to the card front.

To finish off I tied a small bow from some Linen Thread and added it close to the sentiment with a tiny dot of liquid glue. Then with the addition of a few Champagne Rhinestone Basic Jewels my project was finally complete.

Phew, this project took me a lot longer than I expected, but I love the finished result. Sometimes you just can’t rush these things…

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