The Cottage Rose stamp set looks pretty colored with a water color technique. There a lots of different watercolor techniques you can use with Stampin’ Up! products. You can watch my YouTube tutorial to see the particular technique that I used for this card. https://youtu.be/Hc55BhiiacE Lots of different stamp sets would work well with this technique. I think the Cottage Rose stamp set is perfect for water coloring but if you don’t have it yet, you can probably use a similar set that you already have.
Today’s card uses a watercolor technique that is most like true water coloring. Some people may find it to be a little more tedious than other techniques. But, there are other ways that aren’t as time consuming. You might like to try watercolor pencils and the coordinating blender pen for a slightly easier technique. If an easier technique piques your interest, you can check out my blog post on it: https://creativetreehouse.blog/2021/04/08/magnolia-sympathy-card/ There is a video tutorial for that card as well. However, don’t give up on today’s technique until you give it a try. Actually, you should probably try all the different watercolor techniques and see which one is your favorite.
Since July was Watercolor month, I had to try my hand at several of the techniques. This Cottage Rose card features a technique that I think is the most like real water coloring. But, instead of a regular watercolor brush, I used the Water Painters from Stampin’ Up!. These painters come in a set of three and all three are different thicknesses. For this particular card, I chose the thinnest brush tip.
When you gently squeeze the stamp pad, you can get a spot of ink to stick to the lid of the pad. That spot can act as your spot of “paint” with the lid acting as an inkwell. Once you fill up your Water Painter with water you are ready to go. Just dip your Water Painter in the ink spot you created and start painting. Hopefully, you have stamped your Cottage Rose image onto Fluid Watercolor Paper. Otherwise, you’ll note that regular cardstock will buckle quickly even with minimal water.
After stamping the rose image with Soft Suede, I carefully started coloring in the petals with Petal Pink and the leaves with Soft Seafoam. I used Blushing Bride to shade in the petals and Pear Pizzazz for the leaves. Since Soft Suede is a water based ink, you will need to move carefully and not brush too much over the floral image. In addition to using several ink colors from stamp pads, two Watercolor Pencils were used: one for the flower center (Daffodil Delight) and one to gently outline the flower and leaves (Balmy Blue). A blender pen came in handy to blend out the very subtle layer of Balmy Blue. To give the flower a touch of sparkle, I used Wink of Stella over the center of the flower.
The top three layers of the card are popped up with Dimensionals and the ribbon is tucked around the DSP before adhering it to the card base. Soft Suede ink was used for the sentiment which also comes from the Cottage Rose stamp set. You could probably use Early Espresso ink for the sentiment as well. Then finally, I used 3 of the smaller sized rustic metallic adhesive backed dots for some subtle bling. Now this watercolor card using the Cottage Rose stamp set is complete!
Here are the measurements that I used in creating this card:
Fluid Watercolor Paper 4 3/8 x 3 1/8
Soft Suede 4 ½ x 3 ¼
Crumb Cake 4 ½ x 3 ½
Abigail Rose DSP 5 3/8 x 4 1/8
Soft Suede card base 8 ½ x 5 ½ (scored at 4 ¼)
And here is a list of all the products that I used to make this card:
Product List
Very beautiful. I love water coloring also. You have done a great job.
Thank you, Cheryl! I’m glad you are a watercolorist too. 😉