Strathmore Watercolor Cards

Days 5 & 6 of Online Card Classes’ Clean & Simple 3 class have come and gone, but everyone still has a chance to get their “homework” into the gallery until the end of next week. These two days focused on “Backgrounds into Foregrounds” and included Iron-Off Embossing, Masked Backgrounds and Graffiti stamping.

The following card incorporates the Iron-Off Embossing technique in the sentiment. I learned a couple of things doing this card – first, the Zig embossing pen, at least on watercolor paper, tends to stay “blue” (it’s my understanding that it’s supposed to turn clear once embossed!). The second thing I learned – is that even with a ruler, I still can’t draw a straight line!!! lol

First, I stamped the butterfly image with gold ink and heat embossed with Ranger’s Pale Gold embossing powder. I stamped the sentiment with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. In order to give a “boundary” to the watercolor background for the sentiment, I drew a border around the sentiment with the Zig embossing pen (which has a blue tint so that you can see what you are drawing/writing). Then, I heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

After watercoloring the butterfly and the background around the sentiment, I ironed off the sentiment and the border around the sentiment. That is when I discovered the line around the watercolor background was still blue! Well, I haven’t crafted all these years without figuring out how to cover-up mistakes! So, I took the 1/8th” Sookwang tape and put it over the blue lines around the sentiment, and applied glitter! I was pleased to see the effect it gave the sentiment — the whole area looks “recessed” in relation to the butterfly. Pretty cool! I applied some sequins for texture (and to cover up a few little water color splats!

This is a rather large card – 4.75″ x 7″. It’s one of the 5″ x 7″ Strathmore watercolor cards which I trimmed down a bit.