"Glowing" Watercolors with Dawn

Happy Fri-yay! I have a fun one to share with you all today that just puts a big ol' smile on my face.

"Friendship" cards are officially my favorite cards to make. They are happy, unexpected and anything goes! Seriously, you can make a friendship card with any imagery or technique and it's fine...cause friendship never goes out of style, or season!

I decided to pair our new Little Dreamers products with a sentiment from our older Lucky Stars stamp set. I chose to do a little watercoloring with Tim Holtz Distress Inks on Fabriano Artistico Hot Pressed watercolor paper this time.

I kept the watercoloring technique very simple. Because I was working on artist grade watercolor paper (which is made of cotton vs. pulp), the Distress Inks are much more stable and less reactive with water, which allowed me to do a little glazing.

This was super helpful in allowing me to glaze a light wash of yellow over my teddy bear, making it appear as though the star is casting a glow on to him.

I stamped each of the elements with matching colored ink and then watercolored them before die cutting them with the companion die. I've listed all of the ink colors used in the supply list below.

I blended a little Lake House ink onto my background and then heat embossed my sentiment in gold. For accents, I added some stars from the Starry Background Die covered with Wink of Stella and a few sequins.

I hope it makes you smile too!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list may contain some affiliate links.

Wplus9 Little Dreamers Stamp Set Wplus9 Little Dreamers Die Wplus9 4x6" Lucky Stars Stamp Set Wplus9 Dove Grey Premium Cardstock Wplus9 White Premium Cardstock Wplus9 Starry Background Die 4 Bar Stitched Rectangles Die Wplus9 Lake House PURE COLOR Dye Ink Pad Wplus9 Fairy Dust PURE COLOR Dye Ink Wplus9 Wild Mango PURE COLOR Dye Ink Pad Wplus9 Pure Color Warm Wool Dye Ink Ranger Studio Paint ARTIST BRUSHES Brush BRU40842 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad SQUEEZED LEMONADE Ranger TDP40200 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad MUSTARD SEED Ranger TDP40040 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad BRUSHED CORDUROY Ranger TDP39884 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad WEATHERED WOOD Ranger TDP40286 Tim Holtz Distress Mini Ink Pad TATTERED ROSE Ranger TDP40224 Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK PAD Watermark VM-001 Inkadinkado EMBOSSING MAGIC Powder Bag 05847 Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER GOLD Ultrafine Fine Detail GoldEP4 Precision Heat Embossing Tool Gun Hero Arts PW200 Wagner *ZIG Wink of Stella GLITTER CLEAR Brush Tip Marker 025320 Ranger MINI ROUND INK BLENDING TOOLS IBT40965 3M Scotch DOUBLE-SIDED FOAM TAPE Permanent Ranger .5 Oz. MINI MULTI MEDIUM MATTE Glue Adhesive Paint INK41511 Quilled Creations PRECISION TIP Empty Applicator Bottle 317 https://www.simonsaysstamp.com/product.aspx?id=343656 Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White 660425

LinkDeli.com

Heat Embossed Stardust Cards 3 Ways with Yana

Hello friends! This is Yana and I hope you are having a fabulous week!

Oftentimes simple cards are the best to give (and not that hard to make). For my today’s blog post I created 3 easy-to-produce almost flat projects using new Stardust stamp set as a focal point and also a few additional messages and images from the Little Dreamers set.

Inspiration for these projects came from the a photo I spotted on Pinterest - beautiful navy ceramic bowls with gorgeous gold specks.

I started working on my cards by finding the perfect cardstock shade. I didn’t have navy blue so I ended up making desired color of cardstock by blending PURE COLOR Dye Ink in Nautical Navy onto white cardstock. WPlus9 does carry beautiful Nautical Navy cardstock, but I didn’t have any in my stash, so I had to improvise.

After blending ink onto paper I used my heat tool and thoroughly dried paper panels that were cut to 4 x 5 ¼ “ to avoid having embossing powder stick to them (I knew I was going to do lots of heat embossing so I needed my paper to be bone dry).

With the help of a Mini MISTI stamp positioner I stamped and heat embossed stardust background onto my panels. I cut one of the stamps apart and ended up having 3 images instead of 2 for my cards. I also added sentiments to each panel. I went with different messages from the Stardust and Little Dreamers set. My messages ended up being: “Congrats. You’re A Super Star”, “Dream Big. Reach Reach For The Stars” and “I Love You To The Moon And Back”.

I also inked the edges of each panel with Versamark embossing ink and embossed them in gold to make the panels look a bit more finished.

I wanted to add some shimmer to my heat embossed backgrounds so I used Distress Mica Spray in Tarnished Brass and generously spritzed every panel. This particular color goes well with gold embossing powder.

While “Dream Big. Reach Reach For The Stars” card ended up being very simple, I stepped the other two cards up a bit. I added a heat embossed moon to my “I Love You To The Moon And Back” and colored it using FineTec watercolors from the Pearlescent Colors set (colored in gold).

My third project involved some die cutting. I used a circle die and die-cut an opening in my panel. I adhered a piece of black cardstock from the back (I sprayed it with same Distress Mica Spray before adhering) and foam mounted the die cut circle on top but offset it to create the look of a moon. Finally I heat embossed, sprayed and die-cut a star and foam mounted it onto my “Congrats. You’re A Super Star” project.

After foam mounting all of my panels onto A2 top folding black card bases I used a black pigment pen and added black dots in between the gold heat embossed stars.

As always, thanks for stopping by and have fun stamping!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list may contain some affiliate links.

WPlus9 Stardust Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Little Dreamers Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Little Dreamers Die Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Nautical Navy Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Nautical Navy Cardstock Shop at: WP9
Simon Says Stamp Black Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Standard Circles LG Dies Shop at: SSS | SC | SB	Spellbinders Platinum Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS | SC | SB	Mini Misti Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS | SC
Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun PW200 Shop at: SSS | SC | HA	Versamark Watermark Emboss Ink Pad Shop at: SSS | HA	Ranger Mini Round Ink Blending Tools Shop at: SSS | SC	Spellbinders Circle Replacement Foam Shop at: SSS | SC | SB	Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder PW100 Shop at: SSS | SC | HA
ScraPerfect Crafting Pouch Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Distress Designer Mica Sprays Shop at: SSS | SC	Finetec Mica Watercolor Pearlescent Paint Shop at: SSS	Scrapbook Adhesives Black Foam Tape Shop at: SSS	Be Creative Tape 3mm Sookwang Shop at: SSS
Ranger Dylusions by Dyan Reaveley Designer Mica Sprays Shop at: SSS	White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS