Rainbow Watercolored Flower Card

I got the motivation to create this card from this month's Paper Smooches challenge which is Rainbows. I got the inspiration from a photo of a rainbow colored rose after I googled rainbow flowers.

I started my card with die cutting flowers using the flower die from Paper Smooches Pocket die. I adhered a fun foam onto a Stick-It, then die cut this with the flower die. After I die cut several flowers, I knew I was planning to have a white cardstock adhered to the fun foam, too. Oh, well. We will just see how this goes since I don't want to waste the die cuts. After taking the release paper off, I dipped the fun foam flower die cut in an Elizabeth Crafts Silk Microfine Glitter in Warm Diamond. I was curious about this shade since I have used the Cool Diamond before. You cannot see the difference between the Warm and Cool Diamonds by only visually looking at both powders. It is when you apply the glitter to your project that you will notice a tint of gold with this glitter shade. Cool, right?

Anyway, after shaking off the excess glitter, I burnish the glitter to the die cut by rubbing the flower with my finger. I place a paper on top of the flower. Since this is an intricate die cut,  I didn't want to break the petals by directly rubbing it.

I also die cut the circles included in the PS Pocket die using the excess fun foam. I die cut white glitter paper and different colored cardstocks with these circle dies, too. I kept this aside to work on the background piece.

I cut a watercolor paper at 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". I drew a circle at the center to where I plan to have the flowers. I traced lightly with a pencil the negative cut of the flower from the fun foam piece. I watercolored each petal using different colors from the rainbow. I used Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor. I made sure that the colors are heavily pigmented, not adding too much water to make the color vibrant. I heat set in between colors to avoid color blending.  Once this has dried, I erased the pencil marks. If you smeared a paint with your eraser, just apply clean water to this and dab it off with a clean paper towel or rag. This should lighten if not totally removed.

I adhered the fun foam flowers to the watercolored petals making sure they are aligned. I used Ranger Multi Matte Medium to adhere the flowers. To emphasize this circular area of the card, I embossed a circle using the largest circle from the Simon Says Stamped Stitched Circle die. This is where you use a silicone mat underneath your card to prevent the die from cutting the paper through. You just have to test your machine on how much you need as shims to create the impression without  jamming your die cut machine.

Don't worry. The flowers are still intact after I ran it through the die cut machine. It flattened at first but got back in shape afterwards. To add more detail to the card, I used a Darice Checkerboard Embossing Folder to emboss the background but I used a handmade embossing diffuser to prevent  embossing the circle area with the flowers. I got the idea of the handmade diffuser from Tim Holtz Diffuser. I have the first set but the circle on the set is smaller than the circle I needed to diffuse so I stacked some cardboards and cut a circle on the middle. I think diffusers are easy to create now with all the shaped dies in the market.

I could have left the flowers as is since the blending of colors at the center of the flowers looks cool, too. But I decided to embellish the flowers by using the circles I cut with the excess fun foam. I adhered this to the center of the flowers. I adhered the glittered circles to this using Ranger MMM. I adhered the colored circles on the top. I applied clear Wink of Stella to these colored circles. then Glossy Accents.

For sentiment, I used a sentiment that I can curve. I used the sentiment from PS Chit Chat. I curved the sentiment by using a circle die as a guide to curve the sentiment. I curved this on top of a plastic film to stabilize the sentiment, then picked it up with an acrylic block. I stamped the sentiment on vellum using WOW! Embossing Powder in White Pearl. I cut the vellum using circle dies to maintain the curve. I adhered this to the bottom right of the flower circle.

Thanks for viewing my blog. Have a brilliant day!

Maria Giselle B.

I am submitting this creation to:

 

http://papersmooches.blogspot.com/2016/05/may-challenge-rainbow.html

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

http://craftygalscornerchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/challenge-73-anything-goes.html