TGIF – Cool Summer Birthday Cards with Kelly

Hello everyone! It’s Kelly here today sharing a pair of easy watercolor cards using some of my favorite new products! Creating summer cards is my favorite; the colors, the textures…maybe because summer seems so fleeting no matter how hard I try to hold on! There is one thing that isn’t my favorite….and that is the heat that comes with summer! Ha ha! I decided to create these cards using blue/blue-green tones for something cool and refreshing!

To begin, I simply created a wash of watercolor onto three panels of watercolor paper. I know Betsy has mentioned this before, but the cheap watercolor pad they sell at Hobby Lobby (Master’s Touch brand) is the best for this type of project; it is inexpensive and the texture can’t be beat. It is not ideal for serious water coloring, so I just keep it with my paper crafting supplies so I can grab it easily for these types of projects. I chose to create one panel with green hues, one with blue green hues, and one with lighter blue hues. In hindsight, I should have kept the panels a little more “loose” with more open spaces of white. It is hard to add white space back in once it’s gone! Ha ha!

Once the panels were dry (I sped up the process by using my heat tool) I die cut the big Monstera Leaves; one from the green panel with the veins from the blue-green panel, and one from the blue-green panel with veins from the lighter blue panel. The Palm was die cut both from the same blue-green panel; I had originally planned on layering them, but in the end, I used them separately. The hibiscus leaves were selectively die cut from the green panel and then I ran ALL of the dies (I have them all connected) through the light blue panel. I had so much fun assembling the flowers and leaves. I added some additional detail to the die cut detail lines on the hibiscus flowers using the same paint and a small detail watercolor brush. I also added some black ink splatter to ALL of the die cut pieces for contrast.

I stenciled two panels of the same textured watercolor paper using the new Wicker Weave Stencil using Tea Dye, Brushed Corduroy, and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide inks. I used a light hand and selective stenciling for a loose look. Once that was done, I added the flowers and leaves using foam squares and liquid glue. I had originally planned to use all of these details on one card, but I just couldn’t get the composition right, so I omitted the two Monstera leaves and created a second simple card to share with you today.

For the sentiments, I used the older, but well-loved Birthday Blooms stamp set. I stamped the large, focal sentiment in black ink and then die cut them using the Birthday Blooms die set. I heat embossed the accent portion of the sentiment in white onto black strips of cardstock. I layered them using foam squares and then mounted the panels onto A2 card bases using liquid glue. I gave both cards a spritz of Shimmer Spray for sparkle and shine!

As I mentioned earlier, I had envisioned this project a little bit differently, but it’s ok to switch things up if it’s just not working! Sometimes I find myself holding onto an “idea” too tightly rather than letting my creativity flow! It’s always more fun just to let yourself experiment and enjoy the process rather than the outcome. I actually usually end up loving the result way better if I just allow myself time and space to enjoy the creative journey…I hope you do, too! It’s also okay just to step back and take a break and come back to your project with “fresh eyes”! Sometimes that’s when the lightbulb moments will happen, which I just love! Well, enough rambling from me….thanks for stopping by!

~Kelly