I love the vibrant pink and reds in this congratulations card! The card was inked/water colored using Distress Inks re-inkers. I placed a few drops of each of my chosen colors into separate wells of a small plastic palette and used them as if they were watercolors.

The gold centers of the flowers coordinate the thin gold stripe and sentiment. I’m really pleased with the overall results.

How I made this project:

• For the fuchsia-toned background, I started with watercolor cardstock (Tim Holtz), wet the cardstock, and then used a paint brush to swipe color onto the cardstock. I started with my lightest color first and then gradually switched to dark shade and then darker shade of pink/red. I used 3 colors in all for the background and they are listed below in the supplies. The paper was well saturated with water and watercolor and I turned the piece of watercolor on its end vertically to let the lightest color run down into the darker colors. I also swiped the running colors with my paintbrush, so the cardstock was fully covered with color. I put the watercolor cardstock to the side to dry and later used a heat tool to make sure it was fully dried before assembling the final card.
• For the floral image:
  • Stamp the floral image onto watercolor cardstock using a waterproof ink or one that is appropriate for water coloring.
  • Color the images with the chosen colors. The watercolor cardstock was dry, only the brush was wet with watercolor.
  • After the flower image is completely dry, add gold watercolor ink to the centers of the flowers.
• For the sentiment: Die-cut the sentiment from gold foil cardstock three times. Adhere the three sentiments on top of each other for a raised, dimensional effect.
• Final card assembly:
  • Cut a piece of white A2 cardstock on the vertical (longer) diagonal (from corner to corner).
  • Use one of the diagonal cut pieces for the top half of the card.
  • Cut a strip of gold foil cardstock and adhere it to the back of the white diagonal piece.
  • Die-cut the water-colored floral piece using the coordinating die. If you don’t have the die, just fussy-cut the piece.
  • Mount foam tape to the back of the cut out floral piece.
  • Adhere the white diagonal piece to the top part of the water-colored background. Note: decide which side of the water-colored background you want to be visible.
  • Adhere the floral piece to the white diagonal piece.
  • Adhere the dimensional sentiment to the bottom part of the card front.
  • Adhere the completed card front to a card base.

Supplies used in making this project:

• Stamps: Altenew: Starry Flowers stamp set.
• Dies: Altenew: Starry Flowers coordinating die set; Papertrey Ink: Wet Paint Cuts III die set (word “congrats”).
• Inks and Watercolors: For the card front background: Distress Inks in Worn Lipstick, Fired Brick and Picked Raspberry. For the floral piece: Distress Inks in Worn Lipstick, Fired Brick, Picked Raspberry and Barn Door. For the floral stem: Cracked Pistachio. For stamping the floral image: Versafine Ink in Onyx Black. For centers of the flowers: Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry Colors set (Light Gold color).
• Cardstock: Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock; Neenah Solar White 80# (white diagonally cut piece); gold foil cardstock (from my stash). Neenah Solar White 110# (card base).

Hope you like the card. Have a great day!