Quick Hydrangea Card

Hi everyone! Here we are almost at the weekend again. This year seems to already be flying by quickly. Today I have a quick card to share with you. It took longer for the water color paper to dry than to do the techniques and put the card together.

I must confess that I was given a nice set of Prismacolor colored pencils about fifteen years ago and many of them have not even been sharpened yet. :-( I've never had much confidence in my coloring ability but decided that it is time I take a deep breath and just do it. (My new mantra for the year is "just do it.") I have seen this technique done with water colors and a white color pencil used for the resist.. I decided to use Distress ink and color pencils which are non white. I wasn't sure if the Prismacolor ones would work but am happy to report that they do.

I started out by stamping my water color paper with a Hero Arts Hydrangea stamp.(product number  K5376 . It is still available on their website so I'm sure it is available.) I used Ranger Archival black ink because it is suppose to be waterproof but for some reason when I misted my paper some of the ink on the flower bled.Maybe the ink was not totally dry I don't know. Next time I'll heat set it first with my heat tool. I colored my image with a couple of different pinks and a couple of different greens. Then I took a cotton ball and using Concord Grape, Antique Linen, and Peeled Paint Distress ink rubbed the colors randomly with more of the green towards the bottom and more of the grape towards the top. I will be honest I never really work out ahead of time where I'm going to place color when using the different mediums.  However I did decide that I wanted  to use the Antique Linen around the top of the hydrangea to try to get it to look like the sun was shining..Then I took my mister and sprayed my water color paper letting the colors blend together. I couldn't believe when the paper dried how it turned out.To me it  looks like the sun  is shining through storm clouds.  I'm a loving how it turned out.

While my paper was drying I took a Spellbinder die and a piece of pattern card and cut and embossed my corner piece. I was using a scrap piece of the card and the first time it didn't cut through. :-(  I just bought this die  last week so it is my first time using it. I then remembered seeing on a video where a woman placed wax paper and then the card to cut intricate shapes. I wasn't thinking when I put my card stock down or I would have put the green down instead of up. My piece ended up being debossed instead of embossed as I wanted to use the green side and not the white. I used glue just on a few of the leaves to adhere the shape instead of the whole shape. then I went and curled some of the leaves up. I used my corner punch on only two corners of the stamped panel.  Then I edged it with Vintage Photo Distress ink. .I also rounded the corners on my card base.

I challenge you to try something that you may not feel comfortable doing. when it comes to crafting. It can really be freeing when it comes to your crafting journey and open up new adventures for you.

After doing this technique today I've decided that I need more colors of Distress Ink.  I only have six Distress Ink pads and more room in the container that houses the Distress Ink pads. ;-) Maybe I'll be lucky and they will be on sale or I will have a really good coupon like one for off all of your purchases.

Wishing you a fun crafty weekend as well as Happy Frugal crafting till we meet again!