Watercolored Secret Garden Flowers!

Guess what? It’s forecast to snow up to 16″ here tomorrow and into Wednesday. What a totally weird winter we’ve had here in Maine this year. Mother Nature delivered a few large snow storms at the beginning of winter, then we lost almost all of it which affected our poor businesses that depend on our winter recreational activities to survive. And now, just when everyone is ready for spring, we are being bombarded! Of course Dave and I are avid snowmobilers so we don’t mind! I’ll show you photo’s of a trip we made just recently after I show you today’s project.

So here is my card for you today:

I’ve got three different things to talk to you about today. Notice the double-layer of colored doilies below my ribbon strip? I actually colored my white doilies using “More Mustard Ink” and my “Brayer”. Just roll your brayer onto your ink pad and roll it on! I rolled the ink on both sides and then folded my doily a little off-center so that one layer is shorter than the other. Thus the double-layer look!

Next up are my water-colored flowers. I used “Watercolor Paper” and stamped my flowers using “Jet Black StazOn Ink”. For the watercoloring I used my “Blender Pen” and ink pad colors: “Soft Suede, More Mustard and Baja Breeze”. The secret to achieving the shaded look is to always start in the very center of your flowers and gently swirl the ink to the outside. Keep adding ink and work your way from the center and out a few times. The center will get darker each time. Also leave some white space. I then used my “Spritzer Tool” to add some speckles to the whole cardstock layer using the “Soft Suede Stampin’ Write Marker”.

Do you like the color on my bow? I first created my bow using “Natural 7/8″ Cotton Ribbon”. I then dipped a “Sponge Dauber” in “Baja Breeze Ink” and rubbed the sponge across some of the “bumps” and “edges” of my bow to add some shading. Very easy and effective!

Stampin’ Up! Supplies:

• Cardstock: Baja Breeze, Watercolor Paper
• Inks: More Mustard, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Soft Suede Stampin’ Write Marker, Jet Black StazOn
• Stamps: Secret Garden, That’s The Ticket
• Tools: Brayer, Spritzer Tool, Ticket Duo Punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Mini Glue Dots
• Accessories: Natural 7/8″ Cotton Ribbon

That’s me in the “Melon Mambo” jacket (just had to throw that color in there)! We are getting ready to leave.

Our first stop to “Libby’s Camps” for lunch and fuel.

Getting set to leave “Libby’s Camps”.

The locamotives!

Remnants of the left-over rail cars.

Dave and I in front of the locomotives. Shows you just how huge they are!

A little bit of literature.

Dave sledding in past the locomotives when we first arrived.