The inspiration for Ellen Hutson’s March Pin Sights Challenge incorporates lots of shades of green with gold. Here are the images for this challenge:

Since I knew I wanted a water-colored background, I decided to use the smooth side of a sheet of Tim Holtz’s Distress Watercolor Cardstock for the card front. Stamping on the smooth side would give me crisper embossed images.

I first inked my flower images and their stems with Versamark and then heat embossed them with gold embossing powder. I then did the same for the butterfly image and the sentiment.

While I love the greens, the only green inks I had were from Papertrey Ink so I used greens that were similar to the inspiration images.  In order to get the blended greens in the background, I placed my ink pad face down onto a plastic palette and “smooshed” the inks onto the surface. I then watered down the colors with a lot of water from my paint brush and then painted the background with the inks.

The butterfly was colored using the same green inks in a less-watered down version and a wet brush.

I mounted the finished card front onto fun foam to even out the warping from the heat embossing and then matted that on top of forest green cardstock.

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps:  Ellen Hutson’s Essentials by Ellen: Up the Happy; Bold Blooms; Love You So (sentiment).

Inks: Papertrey Ink: Ocean Tides and Mint Julep; Versamark for embossed images.

Cardstock: Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor cardstock; Papertrey Ink: Pinefeather as a mat for the card front; Neenah Solar White 110# for the card base.

Other: WOW embossing powder in Gold Rich Pale.