Thoughtful Branches and Watercolour

As you may have noticed, I am making the most of the short time I can share this bundle (Thoughtful Branches) with you but hoping like crazy it will make a comeback in a future catalogue!  I know I've tried to encourage you before to play with your toys and keep trying until you master a technique, but when I try to do the same, I struggle with not using it. I had some non-SU watercolour paper (not a great quality by any means) and thought I could sacrifice that rather than my 'good' stuff. But I liked the look and these are the results.

The first card I wish to show you was an idea shared by Sara Douglass, Stampin' Up! CEO. The background is masked off at the edge, and then washed with 3 different colours and left to dry. I then veered off from using the leaves she had and added the tree you can see here. I unravelled the thick Cucumber Crush baker's twine and added it to the card, tying it with a single strand. The greeting is from Confetti Celebration.  I used my Wink of Stella brush and picked up Daffodil Delight to colour in the words, Then I wanted more bling so I added a few sequins and Wink of Stella to the leaves - see close up.  And it made it to the mailbox yesterday.

For the next card, it was the same watercolour paper, and this time I just lay a stamp pad on it (Tangelo Twist), the ink was very intense and I initially thought that was going to be a big fail.  However I spritzed it with water and left it to dry.  It was fun watching the colour come apart and spread.  I spritzed again and was happy with the how it toned down yet still enough variety to provide interest.  I cut it out with the Beautiful Branches die and was pleased with the result. I cut a stalk out of the same paper and used the Cucumber Crush ink pad then spritzed as before. Once I had my flower sorted, I knew I wanted to pop it into a vase - so out with the Jar of Love and my new copper embossing powder.  I love how the copper melted so smoothly on the vellum I used for the jar.  I used a marker to colour the back of the vellum for my water.  The head of the flower had dimensions in the centre of it and then I used multipurpose adhesive around the edge - gives a more real look to the hydrangea idea. I picked a Touches of Texture image and embossed that twice at the bottom of the Very Vanilla card and ran the top through the Petal Burst TIEF.  I added a copper embossed banner and a greeting which I brought the Cucumber Crush back into.  I also added some copper metallic thread - see the close up.  A lengthy post but lots of detail to try and explain.