You are doing great today. And we can all use a little extra encouragment in our lives.
I’ve found that it’s those moments where I need a little extra push, it’s most important for me to remind friends in my life how strong they are. So I sat down to make a few cards.
I was needing a bit of inspiration, but when I pulled out the Enjoy Life stamp set, I knew which stamps I wanted to include. I love this Enjoy Life set!
Here’s how to make this quick card for your favorite people who might need a little reminder that they can kick some butt today:
Cut Poppy Parade Cardstock to 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″. Fold in half.
Cut Watercolor Paper to 4″ x 5 1/4″.
Lightly sprinkle Brusho crystals to make a background.
Spritz water over the crystals and tilt the colored water over your paper until you achieve the look you want. I attempted to make mine look like a sunrise using three different colors.
Let dry completely (super important!).
Stamp the grasses and the person using Staz-on ink in Tuxedo Black.
Adhere the watercolor paper to the poppy parade card base.
Unfortunately, the sentiment isn’t as simple as stamping and cutting apart. But I’ll let you know the secret: Masking! Take a post it note, cover the words you don’t want stamped, and ink as usual. Remove the post it note, and stamp onto a Poppy Parade scrap.
Repeat this for all three lines of the seniment, leaving space between each line.
Punch out using the classic label punch (or a corner rounder will achieve a similar result).
So easy, yet so pretty and a great reminder. I hope this quick tutorial encourges you to pick out some fun stamps and kick some butt. And maybe send a little encouragement to someone who needs to hear it.
Color! All colors are fun to play with, so when I was gifted a set of watercolor powders, I was so excited! …and a little intimidated.
Let’s be honest: watercoloring is a lot of fun and creates magnificent results. Here are some of my previous watercolor cards you might like. But using these concentrated watercolor pigments in a powder form was something new to me.
So I sat down to play. I cleared my workspace and brought out my watercolor paper. A thank you card was my hopeful end-goal. Here’s what I was able to do.
Tip: If you want to keep your watercolor paper from curling up when wet (and you want a fantastic white border), use washi tape to tape your paper to a flat non-porous surface.
Tape down your watercolor paper to keep it from curling up (and leave a thin white border).
Using washi tape (or thin painters tape), separate one half of the paper from the other.
Sprinkle a SMALL amount of watercolor powder onto your paper. This stuff goes a LONG way.
Spritz water on the powder to activate it and watch the colors burst. Spray more if you want the colors to blend more.
Use a paintbrush or your heat tool to move the water around.
When your background is dry, remove your washi tape and adhere it to your card base.
Cut your vellum paper into a 3″ x 3″ square and adhere to the middle of your card using glue dots.
Die cut your sentiment from Navy and use your liquid glue to adhere it to the center of your vellum.
Stamp the additional sentiment in Navy and add two white brads.
I had a difficult time choosing, but I belive I’ll be sending this bright card to my friend to thank her for the watercolor powders! I might be biased, but rainbow always wins!
I can’t wait to create more using my Color Burst Powders! There are many other ways to use these, and this “sprinkle and spritz” is just a single method. I love intense colors, and these definitely are intense and fun to play with!
The challenges I’m playing along with this card today are:
If you enjoyed this post and found it helpful, I’d love to hear from you below and to see you share it! I’ll be posting more powder techniques within a few weeks! Happy crafting!
A stunning background can really make a card have that WOW factor.
There are many ways that can accomplish that, so I always love to find a new one! I love Designer Series Paper, but did you know you can make your own??
If you are anything like me, you have a lot of nail polish bottles that are getting a bit old, but out of guilt you keep them — and once in a while treat yourself to a manicure (if only just to cover up the ink stains on your hands from stamping!), but the joy for that specific color or painting your nails is no longer there. I get it; I hate wasting. Even as I continue to simplify my life and minimize my possessions, throwing things out is hard.
So I found a creative way to use those nail polishes: use them to make a scrapbook page or a fun card! That orange would be perfect for a “Tropical” layout, but just doesn’t cut it anymore for my nails ha ha!
On Pinterest, I’ve seen people using nail polish to color wood and other materials, but wondered if I could use a similar technique for my paper crafting! See below for what I did:
How to prepare:
Ingredients: Nail Polish, Watercolor Paper, Pan, Water, Toothpick, Paper Towels or Newspaper, Drying Rack (optional)
That’s it? This will be easy!
Choose some nail polishes. I used three colors for each dip but more or less would be fantastic, too! Open their tops to make it easy to quickly pour. Mine are fairly old (more than a few years) and they each seemed to have their own behavior in the water, but that added character to the marble!
Have your Watercolor Paper ready. I use a heavyweight paper from Stampin Up, but if it holds up to water, it should hold up well with this craft.
Lay out pieces of newspaper or paper towels on your table or surface. I actually used junk mail. Whatever will protect your surface in the event of messiness.
Pour about an inch of lukewarm water into your pan. Your pan should be large enough to accomdate the size of your paper.
Spread out your supplies. Moving efficiently will increase the likelihood that your papers will turn out well, so you’ll want everthing prepared and within reach. No need to rush, but the following took me about 5 minutes.
How to marble paper with nail polish:
1. Pour a few stripes of one color of nail polish in the water. Pour a few more of a different color. Continue with all of the colors your want to use. Have fun with it! Don’t try to purposefully draw anything– just let the water swirl.
Pour in a few drops of your first color.
Pour in other colors.
2. Use the toothpick to swirl a few lines through the polish.
3. Pick up your paper and place it face-down on the water surface for a few seconds. With one corner, carefully pull the paper back up and flip it over. Place it down on your drying rack or paper towels.
Place paper face-down
The drying rack helps
But the rack is optional
4. Depending on the size of your paper, you may have used most of the polish up. If that is the case, use your toothpick to glide through the water to pick up the “skin” that forms a layer on top of the water. Now your pan and water is ready for more polish and more paper marbling!
The polish skin “sticks” to the toothpick as it dries.
5. If you were using small pieces of watercolor paper, you may be able to (quickly) dip more paper on the surface. By the third dip unfortunately, enough time as passed for the nail polish to congeal a bit. Blek. My paper ended up looking like a spiderweb of plastic.
6. This seems to be the limit before pouring out and using new water. Let your papers dry fully before using them.
You never know how this will turn out, and I LOVE that!
Multiple pieces done all in less than 10 minutes!
I was worried about the texture of the paper after I had layers of nail polish on it, but it just feels like sturdy cardstock! It doesn’t smell like nail polish, and BONUS: the paper is now water-resistant!
I hope you had fun with this tutorial. I’d love to see your marbled paper, so please leave a comment or a picture! And if you found this tutorial useful, please bookmark it or maybe even follow the blog for more craftiness! Happy Crafting!
! There are many other ways to use these, and this “sprinkle and spritz” is just a single method. I love intense colors, and these definitely are intense and fun to play with!
