Watercolor Apple Cards Tutorial

Hi and welcome to my blog! I hope your weekend was a nice one! We celebrated Midsummer Eve on Friday with traditional maypole dancing. It was lots of fun and the rain stayed away.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Food and Drink theme. Don't miss the lovely project by our June guest designer Christine Bedford with her blog Pearshapedcrafting.

I needed teacher thank you cards this week and made a bunch of blueprint apple cards, using a stamp from Tim Holtz's Schoolhouse Blueprint set. These are quick and easy to make and basically any of the blueprint stamps would work equally well. The cardbase was die cut with the Simon Says Stamp 3 Sided Scallop, which gives instant interest to the card.

Start by die cutting the cardbase and then white emboss the apple. Watercolor paper works the best for this technique.

Use a tiny bit of Distress Micro Glaze on the apple and the leaf, in a couple of areas that you want to keep white.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. The micro glaze resists the ink. Start with the apple and then do that background and the shadow areas.

I wanted the red areas of the apple to be more red, and used a Candied Apple Distress Crayon to deepen the shade of red from the watercoloring.

Smear Black Soot and Ground Espresso on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. Tap the brush to create fine splatters.

You can also add shadows to the leaf and parts of the apple itself, which makes it look more dimensional. These cards are quick to make and a whole set of them would work great as a gift.

Here you can see the resist effect better, as well as the darker red created with the crayon.

The sentiment comes from the SSS Thank you Teacher set.

Don't worry about coloring inside the lines on this project. In fact, I colored outside the lines on purpose, so that the white embossing would be more visible.

Pierce a hole in the spine of the card and tie a piece of twine across it.

I made even more of these, but I had to give a couple away before I had time to take the photos.

I hope you will join us this week in our Food and Drink challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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