This amazing watercolor sky is perfect with so many different stamped images – trees, flowers, scenery, hot air balloons, birds, etc. It was super easy to create and oh how I love that deep blue color!! Now let’s get started on how I created this!

I started with a piece of Pacific Point measuring 4-1/4″ x 11″ for my card base. Typically I just see what I have in my scraps section and pull out a piece so that is why sometimes it is 4-1/4″ x 11″ and sometimes 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″! This one works perfectly for the ribbon to go around the card up and down! Then I took a piece of Watercolor Paper measuring 3″ x 3-3/4″ and colored rather dark/hard all down the middle with the Pacific Point Watercolor Pencil. Let me preface by saying that I’ve always colored really hard so this was easy for me. You can always go lighter and add in more color if you wish! Once you are finished adding color to the paper, I took an Aqua Painter and brushed back and forth. You want to make sure it is nice and wet (not dripping/soaked but wet and moving the color around.) You can take the color all the way to the edge or just keep it down the middle. Of course, the cool…or maybe frustrating…..thing about watercolor is that no two come out the same. You just never know what you will get. Now set it aside to dry!

Once it was all dry, I stamped the hot air balloons from the Lift Me Up Stamp Set in Basic Black. PS: if you have no patience for it to dry like me, you can use your Heat Tool to speed it up! 🙂 Next, I layered this onto Whisper White (4″ x 3-1/4″) to really make it POP. I placed it onto the card front on the left side! Then I wrapped some of the Succulent Garden Ribbon around and tied it into a knot! For the greeting, I stamped using the Lift Me Up Stamp Set onto Pacific Point. Using the Layering Oval Framelits, I die cut the greeting and scallop oval. Next, I added the greeting to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals so it would look smooth over the ribbon! I thought it looked a little empty in the upper right corner so I added a few White Perfect Accents! That was the perfect fix!

Do you love to watercolor? Let me know your favorite watercolor tools in the comments below – Blender Pens, Aqua Painters, etc? To see more samples using watercoloring, check them out here, here, and here!

Happy Stampin’

~Laura