Watercolour Peonies:

Good morning all!  We have been hard at work here building our fence - it looks so pretty!!  We have basically been sharing a yard with two other neighbours since we moved to our new house a year and half ago.  It's so nice to have own space now!!!

I have also been working in my craftroom too.  The card I am sharing with you today has been in the works for 24 hours.  I started yesterday morning then went to work outside, then came back to the card.  Before bed I pressed my watercolour paper over night and am now finally able to put on the finishing touches!  I have some tips below too!

I started with Stampendous! Jumbo Peony set (retired) which I heat embossed with Stampendous! Opaque White embossing powder then I masked the peony a few times to achieve my background.  I painted an ombre effect to each flower with my cheap watercolour paints.  I then added a vellum strip with a SSS Friendship Messages sentiment.  I was going to add some gold sequins but felt it took away from the flowers.

Watercolour Tips:  I like to use heavy watercolour paper (140+ lbs) as it buckles less.  I keep an old hairspray bottle filled with water handy so I can spritz my watercolour paper first before adding the paint (pink in this example) as it keeps the paint very loose.  I love how it bleeds into each layer of pink colour.  After finishing the one pink flower, I would then let it completely dry.  Next I will spritz the next flower (purple in this example) with my water bottle and start the process all over again and let that flower dry and so on.  If you don't let the flowers dry separately then the pink flower would bleed into the purple.

Watercolour Paper Warping Tips:  After the WHOLE painting is dry I then will turn it over and spritz the BACK of the paper, making sure I get the whole back quite wet.  Next I grab an open phone book, then place a piece of paper towel, next my watercolour painting face down, then a piece of wax paper, lastly another piece of paper towel, and then close up the book to press the paper flat.  I then waited overnight to take it out but essentially it could have been taken out after 3+ hours.  Voila!  You have a FLAT piece of watercolour paper!  Nothing bother me more than trying work with wonky paper!  I have heard of people doing a low set iron but I have not tried that one yet.

Vellum Heat Embossing Tips:  Once you have your stamped image with embossing powder on the vellum, take your heat embossing tool and wave quickly (keep it moving!) back and forth underneath the vellum.  There will be far less buckling if you keep your heat tool moving.  If you do get a warp then heat from the top on the one spot.  I then adhere my vellum piece to my card with a Martha Stewart glue pen as it dries completely transparent.

(I apologize if I keep/kept? jumping from present tense to past tense in my above tips.  I tried to proofread it but frankly English was not my best subject in school).

Phew - that was a lot of typing - sorry all!

I have created this card for the following challenges:

The Friday Mashup!

use ombre and/or embellishment clusters

Virginia's View Challenge

Well that is it for me today - enjoy your Wednesday.  Cheers all!