Gerbera Watercolor Cards

Hello friends! I hope you had a good weekend. We explored some walking trails around our new place, with bonus blueberry picking. Things are still pretty chaotic at home though. Most of the boxes are unpacked, but things are not yet organised. And our frying pan is mysteriously missing. I am starting to think it was accidentally thrown away. 

This is a special week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog since we are celebrating our 9th birthday! That's a whole lot of challenges and inspiration. Since it is also the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing products from a specific brand/company, and this week it is Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Products. You can find the whole range of wonderful stamps, dies, stencils, papers, embossing powders, inks and more here. You don't have to use SSS products to join in the challenge, but it is always fun if you do. 

Our theme this week is Happy Birthday, and we have a fantastic guest designer, namely Alison Bomber. If you have never visited Alison's blog Words and Pictures, I hope you will, since you are in for a treat. 

I made three Gerbera Daisy cards, with watercolor backgrounds. The backgrounds were made with the beautiful Gerbera Daisy Background stamp, from the Celebrate You release. One quick background and one that takes a little longer to do. I photographed the cards on a rock formation in our new garden.

Before starting my project I had to spend a chunk of time first looking for my embossing ink, and then for watercolor paper. I can't wait to have everything organised again.

Let start with this card, colored with Scribble Sticks. As you might already know, I love Dina Wakley's Scribble Sticks, and they can be used in so many ways. The colors were inspired by real gerbera flowers.

Start by white embossing the Gerbera Daisy Background on watercolor paper. Always be careful when you heat emboss, so that you don't burn yourself.

Pick up the color from the tip of the Scribble Sticks with a paint brush, and paint the flowers. Use more water for a lighter shade of color, and then drop in a strong shade towards the center of the flowers. I used Scribble Sticks 1 and Scribble Sticks 2.

Don't worry about getting a perfect result, but instead just color loosely. For a totally different look, stamp the flowers with black ink instead. 

The Celebrate Word was die cut from a red piece of glossy cardstock which had been colored with alcohol inks. It gives a nice shiny contrast. I also die cut it from SSS Glimmery White Diamond cardstock to use as a matte. The Tiny Words Birthday set has so many great birthday sentiments. I had a hard to choosing which to use.

For the second background, I made two versions, simply because I had white embossed three backgrounds. It is a super quick background, done with Distress Inks, using the same shades of color, with the exception of the green.

Smear Distress Inks on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and press the paper into the ink. Repeat if you want a stronger shade.

This technique also works great with backgrounds that didn't emboss perfectly. The extra, or missing, embossing powder, just adds to the look.

I love the paper hug sentiment. So true.

The second background has a lighter look, and I mounted it only on white cardstock to accentuate that. 

Distress Ink magic.

The sentiment was die cut from White Diamond and Coal Glimmery Cardstock giving it a lovely shine.

I hope you will join us this week in our Happy Birthday challenge. Since this is a special week, we have two $50 gift vouchers to give away to two random participants, for 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 so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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