Christmas Card Club - Christmas Flower

Welcome, and today is Challenge #6 for our Christmas Card Club. This is a group of ladies who make Christmas Cards and post every 2 weeks. Today's challenge theme was selected by Rachel who picked Christmas Flowers.

I decided to use a Stampendous cling poinsettia stamp, and work with watercolor again. Stamped and embossed with a new Brutus Monroe Ultra Gilded Gold. I'm very pleased that it seems to be very similar to my favorite Ranger Queen's Gold, which has been discontinued. Got out the Arteza water color pens to try. I had used Koh-I-noor mixed media paper which is supposed to be good for watercoloring. Well, folks, my water color skills are not great, and this paper pilled for me. Also I didn't find the Arteza pens to be quite as easy for me to blend as the Zigs. (not that I'm great with Zigs either!) Finally got out some distress inks and just touched the water pen to the surface and then tried to fix the hard edges on my work. Here's the result:

I didn't even bother to put this on a card. Was very tempted to just toss in the trash, but thought I'd share it here - yes, it's a wart. I keep trying with the water color & get so discouraged that it never looks very good.

Next effort - and once again tried the Arteza, thinking maybe my first image was too complex so I'd use a very simple shape. Used the same colors as above.

 

This image did color a bit better than the first attempt, but I still had to use the water pen direct to the Distress Ink pad to get good coverage. I had put layers of water color on the petals, but as it was starting to 'pill', decided I best go to the ink pad. This was done on 140# watercolor, and I didn't have a lot of water on the brush. Guess I was just going over the area too much perhaps. Die cut a red side fold card base to create an aperture. Die cut the image, then made a green frame. Once this part was adhered behind the aperture, cut another frame, used WOW embossing pad, then the Brutus Monroe Gilded Gold EP. This looked  pretty good, BUT as I was adhering the frame over the aperture shape with glue that is not supposed to leave anything showing if some of it seeps out....well, you could see a smudge on the paper. What to do? Had a purchasedt Christmas card (some of my relatives who don't save cards but give them to me)...so started to fussy cut some poinsettias to hide the boo-boo. One fussy cut led to another...and there it is. You ever start a card, that no matter what you do, it seems to get worse?!

 

Almost ready to pull out the copics, as time was getting short. Decided to give the water color one more try. Found another image, used water color paper, Distress Inks. WOW embossing ink, Brutus Monroe EP, then put a light blue wash over the embossing. My first wash effort made some of the gold embossing flake off, so got another piece of W/C card and did the above process again. This time I was very careful to keep the damp brush off the embossing as I was doing the wash. Then used the Distress Inks (2 greens for the leaves, even though you can't see the shading) -- Barn Door and Festive Berries for the flowers. Die cut, and the die made a frame as it cut. Used Brutus Monroe Gold to emboss the frame. Used a PTI cover plate to emboss the white background, but it doesn't show up in the photo.

 



I don't know if #3 was the charm, but I do know I was getting tired of trying to do watercolor, so that's it! It might be a while before I try to watercolor anything again. I get frustrated, and then after a while, I want to give it another go. I just don't like to admit something has defeated me, when I really want to be able to do it...and do it fairly well. I know it takes practice, practice, practice! Sorry for the long post. I'd be interested in your efforts if you struggle with this technique too.

Do check out the fellow team members whose blog links are on the right hand side bar. Have a wonderful afternoon, and my blog candy winner has contacted me. I've been finding some other goodies to tuck in, and hope to mail it early next week.

Hugs & Blessings.