Brew-tiful Watercolor

Hello my crafty friends, it's Amanda from Pear Blossom Press again! Today, I'm sharing a quick and easy card featuring the Handmade Brew set. If you missed it last time, don't worry, it will be back on August 26th. If you haven't seen it yet, this set has a "handmade by" stamp - perfect for signing your name under, on the back of cards. It also has a lovely mug with hearts rising from the steam, and three little words that fit perfectly inside the cup. You can use this image on the back of your cards as well, but it is so pretty that I thought it would make a great image for the front of a card.

For today's card, I stamped and embossed the cup and words onto an A2 size panel of watercolor paper. The cups kind of form a diagonal line from the top left side to the bottom right. Loose is the name of the game for this card; watercolor and wispy images like this pair perfectly, and there is no need to try to line them up and evenly space them apart. Next, I painted a loose diagonal line of clean water over the area where I wanted to add color. The light coat of water helped the colors move around when I started dropping them in with my paintbrush, and it kept them confined to that diagonal line. The white embossing powder resists the paint. I used three colors and played around until I was happy with the look. The edges dried with harsh lines, so I came back in with some more clean water and pounced my brush over the edges a little to soften them. I dried the panel and splattered on some concentrated color, as well as some black paint. Then I trimmed 1/8" off each side and glued it to a top-fold A2 card base. Whenever you paint a panel all the way to the edges, color tends to pool up along the sides. Trimming the panel after it's painted allows you to cut off the obvious edges and keeps your eyes moving.



To finish the card, I embossed a sassy sentiment from Perfectly Blended onto a black strip, and popped it up with a little foam tape. The black splatter on the watercolor panel ties the two together nicely. I opted not to add any sequins or glitter, but you definitely can if you'd like. I love the way this card turned out. The tiny words that fit inside the cup make it look like three different images; I especially like how the L in love creates the left side of the cup. This card was so fast and easy to make that I plan to make several more with different sentiments. I think a set of these would make an awesome gift.

Thanks for stopping by today! Let me know in the comments below what types of images you like to use for watercolor pieces. How would you use the coffee cup in this set? You can find more watercolor inspiration here. You can also find the sister article to this on my blog. Hop on over for more great ideas and links to specific products I used. Until next time, stay crafty my friends...