Watercolored Iris

Playing along with the AAA Card Challenge "Die Cuts Only." I thought about this for quite awhile and finally decided to use one of my favorite stamp and die sets, Altenew's Enchanted Iris. I've never watercolored this particular stamp, so it was another kind of challenge for me.

 

To begin, I took a piece of watercolor paper and a piece of Neenah Solar White 80#, both cut to 4.25" x 5.5". I then stamped the smaller of the two irises in the set on both papers in Versamark. On the watercolor paper, I heat embossed the image with clear embossing powder. I used the image on the Neenah paper to line up my die, which I then cut and set aside. At the same time I cut the die, I also cut the sentiment twice in white and once in Gina K Designs Sandy Beach cardstock.

Now came the real challenge! I hate to admit that I tried this at least three times before I got the effect I wanted. First I tried it with my Zig Clean Color watercolor markers on wet paper, which did not work for me. More practice needed there. After a second try with  irridescent watercolors I knew I was on the right track but needed a little more guidance. That's when I turned to May Park's excellent tutorial, which you can view here.

I followed May's instructions step by step and was glad to finally have a result that apaproached a decent watercoloring job!

To finish, I adhered the sentiment layers in the diecut space using matte medium. Then I cut the top panel with Spellbinders Card Creator dies and popped it up on the card with foam tape.

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