Creative Watercolor Greeting Cards

Today's tutorial is all about being creative with media that you might not think about using to create colorful and exciting greeting cards. Once again, welcome to my journey as I move through the Altenew Educator classes. I love sharing my journey with you. That was the purpose of my going through this program. I wanted to be able to share new techniques and ideas with the community. 

The media that I am sharing today is the Altenew reinkers. Have you ever thought about using reinkers as a color medium? Any reinkers are good for this technique. But for me, I have found that the Altenew reinkers have the most vibrant color options. All you will need are some reinkers, some paint brushes and some watercolor paper. 

These cards use heat embossing to create a "cradle" or outline that allow you to use reinkers as watercolor mediums. You will want to use a good smooth watercolor paper to get the best results. 

You will want to have a "well" to color in, so each of these projects used stamps that were het embossed onto smooth watercolor paper. 

Let's get started with our first card as seen above. 

Yellow Thank You Card

Beautiful Day Stamp Set

Honey Drizzle Reinker

Snapdragon Reinker

Frayed Leaf Reinker

Forest Glade Reinker

Plastic Paint Palette

Two Container filled with water

Versamark Ink Pad

Gold Stickles

White or Clear Embossing Powder

Embossing Bag

Smooth Watercolor Paper

Embossing Folder

Colored Cardstock

White Cardstock

Scoreboard

Bone Folder

Sequins

Heat Gun

Thick PVA Glue

Double sided Tape

1. Cut the white cardstock into the size of the card base that you would like to create. This card used a piece of white cardstock (110lb) that was 6" by 9".
2. Score the cardstock at the half mark on the scoreboard with the bone folder. Fold the card and set aside.
3. Cut the watercolor panel into the size that you need. 3 3/4 " by 5 inches.
4. Use the embossing bag or cornstarch over the watercolor paper to make sure that no stray pieces of embossing powder get on the design.
5. Stamp the design using the Versamark ink. You can use an acrylic block or a stamping tool, like the MISTI. 
6. Cover with embossing powder. Tap the powder off. Check for any loose pieces of embossing powder. Remove any stray embossing powder with a soft, clean paint brush.
7. Heat the heat gun before using for a minute or two. Then heat the design until all of the embossing powder is melted. Let the design cool for a minute.
8. Tape the watercolor design with low tack tape. That way there will be no warping of the paper,
9. Drop a single drop of reinker into the well of the plastic palette.
10. Take one petal of the flower and wet it with clean water using a paint brush. You need to just wet the petal, but not saturate it. 
11. Touch the brush to the ink and allow the ink to flow into the water.
12. Do petals some distance from each other so that the ink and water does not flow into other sections of the design.
13. Once all the petals are colored and dried, to the shadow areas either with a darker color in the same color family or a darker color.
14. Add color to any leaves in your design. 
15. Use the embossing folder and your embossing machine to create an embossed layer. The layer for this card was 4 1/2" by 6". 
16. The second layer was 4" by 5 1/4".
17. Create a sentiment with a stamp.
18. Layer the sentiment with the same color as your card.
19. Assemble the card. Take your design layer and adhere that to the colored cardstock layer with double sided tape. Take the layer you created and adhere that to the embossed layer. Then adhere the three layers to the card base using foam tape.
20. Finally, adhere the sentiment to the colored cardstock. Adhere that to the center of the card using foam tape, Glue sequins on and you are done.

Simple Yellow Birthday Card

                                                                                         

Beautiful Day Stamp Set

Honey Drizzle Reinker

Snapdragon Reinker

Frayed Leaf Reinker

Forest Glade Reinker

Plastic Paint Palette

Two Container filled with water

Versamark Ink Pad

Gold Stickles

White or Clear Embossing Powder

Embossing Bag

Smooth Watercolor Paper

Embossing Folder

Colored Cardstock

White Cardstock

Scoreboard

Bone Folder

Sequins

Heat Gun

Thick PVA Glue

Double sided Tape

This card features the same design as the card above. Instead of multiple stamping, it features a single flower and a few stamped leaves. 

1. Cut the white cardstock into the size of the card base that you would like to create. This card used a piece of white cardstock (110lb) that was 5 1/2" by 9"
2. Score the cardstock at the half mark on the scoreboard with the bone folder. Fold the card and set aside.
3. Cut the watercolor panel into the size that you need 3 3/4" by 4"
4. Use the embossing bag or cornstarch over the watercolor paper to make sure that no stray pieces of embossing powder get on the design.
5. Stamp the design using the Versamark ink. You can use an acrylic block or a stamping tool, like the MISTI. 
6. Cover with embossing powder. Tap the powder off. Check for any loose pieces of embossing powder. Remove any stray embossing powder with a soft, clean paint brush.
7. Heat the heat gun before using for a minute or two. Then heat the design until all of the embossing powder is melted. Let the design cool for a minute.
8. Tape the watercolor design with low tack tape. That way there will be no warping of the paper,
9. Drop a single drop of reinker into the well of the plastic palette.
10. Take one petal of the flower and wet it with clean water using a paint brush. You need to just wet the petal, but not saturate it. 
11. Touch the brush to the ink and allow the ink to flow into the water.
12. Do petals some distance from each other so that the ink and water does not flow into other sections of the design.
13. Once all the petals are colored and dried, to the shadow areas either with a darker color in the same color family or a darker color.
14. Add color to any leaves in your design. 
15. Use the embossing folder and your embossing machine to create an embossed layer. The layer for this card was 3 3/4" by 4 7/16"
16. The second layer was 4 1/4" by 5 1/4"
17. Create a sentiment with a stamp.
18. Layer the sentiment with the same color as your card.
19. Assemble the card. Take your design layer and adhere that to the embossed layer with double sided tape. Adhere the two layers to the cardstock base and adhere them to the plain cardstock base. Then adhere all the layers to the base with foam tape. 
20. Finally, adhere the sentiment to the colored cardstock. Adhere that to the bottom right of the card using foam tape, Glue sequins on and you are done.

• Do not over water your projects. It only takes a little water to get the required results.
• Use only a drop of reinker or less. It just takes a little bit on the tip of your brush to get the color to spread on the design.
• Let the different areas dry so that you do not get bleeding.
• Add shading on your design to create more dimension.

You can use this technique with any stamp set that you may have. Layered stamp sets work best because they have very detailed outline stamps. But I encourage you to try any outline stamp you have. Enjoy the process and experiment with different types of outline stamps.

I hope that you will give this technique a try. It is so much fun, and the results are really amazing! You can combine all kinds of different colors and designs to create you unique and wonderful project.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave a comment. We always love hearing from you!

Till next time, Happy Crafting!

Linda

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