Watercolor Flower Thanks

Yesterday was my birthday, and I actually managed to have a few quiet moments to myself at the end of the day. So, I decided to be brave and do some water-coloring. I'm certainly far from being skilled at watercolor, but I can't get any better if I don't practice. So, here goes...

I pulled out a piece of distress watercolor paper and Botanical Bunch stamp set from WPlus9. I stamped the flower bunch in brown archival ink and gave it a minute to dry. Then I taped the piece to my board with blue painters' tape and grabbed my Koi watercolors.

I started with the leaves, using just a flat green color at first. After letting it dry, I used a darker green to add some shadows here and there. Once the leaves were completely dry, I colored in the flowers. I colored the biggest flowers bright red, using a combination of light and darker red. Once the were dry, I also added a touch of brown at the center. I used bluish purple for the smaller flowers and a combination of yellow and orange for the single sprig.

I let everything dry, hitting it briefly with my heat tool to make sure no colors would bleed. I wanted a pale blue/aqua background, but the set didn't come with that kind of color. So, I used a combination of white and blue with just a tiniest touch of green to create my own color. I did a really quick flat wash all over the background.

I wanted to add a bit more texture to the background, so I loaded my brush with the aqua color and touched it to the paper, creating little dots that spread out where the paper was still wet. I then grabbed a baby wipe and gently dabbed in several spots. This removed color in some areas and added more color to others. Once I was happy with the texture, I set the piece aside and let it dry overnight.

The rest of the card came together very quickly.

I grabbed a standard A2 card base (4¼ by 5½") created from white cardstock and a piece of dark brown cardstock that measured ¼" less than the base (4 by 5¼"). I trimmed the watercolor piece to be slightly smaller than that, then matted them together and adhered them to the base.

For the sentiment, I used Hand Lettered Thanks stamp from WPlus9. I embossed the scripted Thanks with gold embossing powder and stamped the tiny "many" in brown archival ink.

As a last touch, I adhered 3 gold sequins near the top of the flower bunch.

Thanks to Marika, I found WPlus9's Throwback Thursday challenge, so I'm going to enter this card. :D

Supplies:
WPlus9 - Botanical Bunch stamp
WPlus9 - Hand Lettered Thanks stamp
Ranger Archival Ink in Potting Soil
Koi Watercolor 24-color field kit
Simon Says Stamp Gold Ultrafine Detail Embossing Powder
Simon Says Stamp Sparkle & Shine sequin mix
Brown cardstock
Bazzill heavyweight cardstock in Marshmallow
Tim Holtz Distres watercolor paper
Tombow XTreme adhesive runner