Watercolor meets To a Wild Rose - Stamp with Marilyn

Today I am sharing a group of cards showing variations of watercolor technique that I am calling Watercolor meets To a Wild Rose. For these particular cards I watercolored the Roses with Stampin’ Up!’s Classic Ink and an Aqua Painter after stamping and embossing the images from the To a Wild Rose stamp set on Watercolor Paper.

I love the look that you can achieve from embossing an image and then watercoloring with ink and an aqua painter. Using water in your aqua painter gives you the ability to shade by diluting the ink and blotting with a paper towel. The other thing that I wanted to test out is embossing with black embossing powder and white embossing powder to see how the look of the card changes.

Here are the Directions for these cards:
1. The card base for each of these cards is piece of Whisper White cardstock cut to 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ scored at 4 1/4″. The first layer is cut to 5 1/8″ x 3 7/8″. The second layer is cut to 5″ x 3 3/4″. The watercolor paper is cut to 4 7/8″ x 3 5/8″. NOTE: the order of the Lovely Lipstick and Black layers of cardstock are switched between the two cards.
2. Stamp the Rose and leaf images on watercolor paper with versamark. I stamped a Rose on a post-it note to cut out a mask for stamping multiple flowers. So I stamped the rose in the corner first and then placed the mask over it while I stamped the other two roses around the original image. Then stamp the leaves with versamark. Emboss with either white or Black embossing powder.
3. I use one of my clear blocks as a palette for ink while I am coloring. I press the clear block on top of the ink pad just like I am inking a stamp. Next you want to add water to your aqua painter. Squeeze the aqua painter enough to get the brush tip a little wet – not too wet. You can always add more water if the color is too dark. I also suggest coloring on a scrap of paper first to test the coloring.
4. I color the center of the flower with just a dab of Daffodil delight ink. Then I start with the inside petals of the flower and make these a little darker. Then start to pull the color out on the outer petals to make these shaded lighter. Keep a paper towel on hand to blot up excess water. Remember that there is no right or wrong to coloring. No two flowers are ever the same! And this takes practice!
5. I repeated this process with Old Olive to color in the leaves. That’s it!

Now to assembling your cards:
1. The card on the top left is the card embossed with white embossing powder layered onto a piece of Lovely Lipstick cardstock. I added the message “Blessed” from the To a Wild Rose stamp set.
2. The card on the upper right is also embossed with white embossing powder. I used the Rose die to cut out the roses. The background piece is a piece of Whisper White cardstock that is embossed with the Tufted embossing folder. I used my aqua painter with a little Balmy Blue ink to make the wash for the background. Then I cut a trellis from the die set from a piece of Lovely Lipstick foil (retired Sale-a-bration item). The Roses and the leaves are attached with dimensionals.
3. Card 3 is the Roses stamped and embossed with the black embossing powder. I changed the sequence of the layers so the black layer is against the white background to make the roses pop.

So which card is your favorite? I have to say that mine is the card with the flowers embossed with black embossing powder. Here is the product list for these cards. I did make these cards as part of a FaceBook Live event. So Check out my facebook page for the video on July 29th.