Watercolor Hugs

I'm participating in the monthly Papertrey Ink blog hop today.  It's been a while since I've joined in and it feels so good to be back!  Here's the inspiration photo and challenge:

artwork from Sarah Langtry from Just the Bees Knees

I love the way Sarah layered the gray text over the watercolored images here, and I thought how lovely the same design principles would look applied to a card! Replace the popsicles with butterflies, florals, hearts, stars or anything else you dream up. Pick one of the color palettes to base your entire card on, or try using all of them! Look for big sentiments that featured a mix of serif and script. Really experiment and have fun stepping out of your comfort zone!

I went with a soft pink palette based on the popsicle in the lower left corner, choosing a flower image from One Big Happy and a sentiment from Big Hugs.

I absolutely love how it turned out!  I didn't really have a firm vision in mind and just went with the creative flow.  First, I stamped the flowers in Lovely Lady ink using the watercolor spritz technique.  None of them look the same.  Some flowers came out softer and more blurred, probably because I spritzed extra water on the stamp.  Take that, perfectionism!  I did the same technique with the flower centers using Stormy Sea ink, but this time I stamped off first before spritzing.

The stamped panel is watercolor paper, by the way.  Since I wasn't worried about it buckling or pilling, even after the watercolor technique, I sprayed the paper with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist.  It is so shimmery in real life!  (especially in the sun)  Hopefully you can see it in the close-up photo.  I love the size variation in the splatter.  I also added some tiny stamped-off Lavender Moon hearts using an image from Big Hugs.  It's very subtle and adds just a bit more color variation and texture.

I cut two large "hugs" words from Stormy Sea cardstock and layered them together for dimension.  Then I stamped my sentiment from Big Hugs just above it in Stormy Sea ink.  Everything was glued to a Lovely Lady card base.

My daughter Emily came home from school while I was photographing my card and promptly claimed it as hers.  lol  I love that girl!  I'm glad I was able to get a card done for the blog hop.  It was fun to try a new technique and get out of my comfort zone.  I think I channeled the inspiration photo and challenge quite well.   :)

Stamps:  One Big Happy, Big Hugs (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Lovely Lady, Stormy Sea, Lavender Moon (Papertrey Ink)
Paper:  Lovely Lady, Stormy Sea (Papertrey Ink); watercolor paper
Misc:  Big Hugs die (Papertrey Ink); Heirloom Gold (Perfect Pearls Mists)