Inky Bee Stampers

One of my hobbies is watercolor painting and I was excited to learn I could transfer my love of watercolor painting to cardmaking! In this technique using Water Painters your stamp blocks can become your palette and your Stampin’ Ink Pads your watercolors. I used the Fluid 100 5″ x 7″ watercolor paper from Stampin’ Up!

For this card project I used the Flowing Flowers Stamp Set for the stamped images of the flowers on this card. I stamped the large flower twice – once with the flower facing up, and once with the flower facing down in Polished Pink then stamped the grouping of the three smaller flowers to the left – also in Polished Pink. This technique is not the quickest process so you may want to save your watercolor cards for that special “someone”, but the results are truly worth it!

The key to this technique is to let each watercolor layer dry in between applications – including the initial stamping of the flower images. You want to gradually build the color. The base color for the flower petals will be the Polished Pink Stampin’ Ink Pad. To achieve the darkest shades of “pink”, I used the Real Red Stampin’ Ink Pad and for the dramatic background I used the Mossy Meadow Stampin’ Ink Pad. Dropping in the Mossy Meadow background really makes the Polished Pink flowers pop! The watercolor image was then cut out using one of the rectangular dies from the Stitched So Sweetly dies set, then mounted on a Mossy Meadow Cardstock mat which was then mounted to a Polished Pink card base. Add the greeting, a ribbon bow and a little bling and you’re done!

I recommend practicing this technique on some inexpensive watercolor paper until you feel comfortable with the process. Have fun and just play!

To view full instructions to create this card click here. I hope you’ll give this technique a try. I think you’ll be pleased with the results!