Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be the Leading Lady for the month of July (my birthday month!) for Winnie and Walter. I had the pleasure of meeting Shay earlier this year at Stamping Away in Kansas. She is sweet, fun, and generous and I can’t wait until we get to play stamps again some day!
For week one, I’m going to focus on making cards from water colored backgrounds. I pulled out my water colors (which I need to do more) and made a few backgrounds. These are quick and easy to make and look gorgeous.
My first background, I used green and yellow water colors to make this simple and soft background. I then heat embossed the cute dancing animals from Happy Dance with Evelin T Designs and a sentiment from Party On with Evelin T Designs. If your not a person that likes to color, this is a great way to show off these cute images.
For my next background, I used a wide brush to water color turquoise stripes on a piece of water color paper. I really love how this one turned out and wanted to show off the background, so I kept it simple and only used dies. I used one of the Love dies from In a Word: Love Coordinating Cutaways. I love this die set and am going to have to force myself not to use it on every card! The You dies are from Dotty About You with Lydia Evans Cutaways. I cut top layer out of the same water color paper I used from the background and the bottom layer is from the same card stock I used for the card base. I popped the you die cut up with some foam tape, and then added some turquoise and white twine at the top to finish off the card.
For card three, I water colored a background using pink and purple water colors, and then splattered some of the same colors on it. Instead of using it as a background, I stamped the sentiment beautiful and the flower images from In Bloom: Ashlee’s Rosie Posies with Lydia Evans onto the background paper and used the coordinating cutaway dies to cut them out. I also water colored some green on water color paper, stamped the leaves, and die cut them. I used the same pink and purple water colors to splatter on a piece of white card stock. I arranged the flowers and leaves at the bottom of this piece, popping some of the flowers up with dimensional foam tape. I white heat embossed the Have a and Day onto some black card stock to complete the sentiment.
I had so much fun making these cards and showcasing the wonderful products from Winnie and Walter .
At the end of the month, there will be a giveaway of a $30 gift card from Winnie and Walter here on my blog.I’ll see you next week, thanks for joining me!
Love these pretty background ideas! Beautiful cards! Looking forward to seeing more Leading Lady projects from you this month! Congrats!
Thank you Denise, such fun products to create with.
These are so lovely! Love the pretty, soft palette.
Thank you Kirsty, I tend to always use bright colors, so this was a nice change.
Lovely cards. Love the backgrounds you made.l
Thank you Leanne!
Very pretty backgrounds and cards. Thanks for the inspiration.
Thanks mom!
I’ve been trying to take out the water colors more often, too. I even did some smooshing for the first time today (with leftover ink). Your cards are really pretty and I love the floral with all the splatters (something I need practice with!).
Thank you Becca, I need to practice my smooshing. I like things precise, so that is difficult for me!
delightful cards – thanks for the ideas:)
Thank you Dee.
Lovely cards Caren! Gorgeous backgrounds.
Thank you Dana!
Looking forward to seeing more of your creations as leading lady. Love the way you used watercolours on your cards.
Thank you Mary-Anne, it was surprisingly quick with a great outcome. I need to do this more.
Wonderful watercolored backgrounds and love the cute critters.
Thank you Sue, critters are my fav!
Great variety of cards! Love seeing all the ways to use watercoloring!
Thank you Greta!
Watercolour backgrounds are a fab way to colour images. Thanks for sharing your creativity.
Thank you!
Congrats on your Leading Lady spot! I love the different ways you used your watercolored background and especially like the simple heat-embossed images for those who don’t like to (or have time to) color.
Thank you Karen, I do love to color, but I’m so slow at it!
First of all, congratulations for being this month Leading Lady ! Then, that’s a great start you’re making today ! Your trio of cards is absolutely lovely ! The colors are super fresh and I love the simplicity of your designs. My favourite is the favourite is the first one but as soon as you’re displaying animals on a card, I can’t resist ! Can’t wait to see your next cards…..
[margessw(at)icloud(dot)com]
Thank you Marjorie, I can’t resist cute animals either!
I love your watercolor card with no-coloring because I am not good at coloring and don’t have a lot of time to craft. It looks so pretty with the cute images and scalloped die edge!
Thank you, I do love to color, but it takes me forever!!
Congrats on being the new July Leading Lady, Caren!!!
Love your colouring technique!!! Beautiful cards!!!
Thank you Arianna!
Beautiful cards! I love your backgrounds!
Thank you Stacey!
Congrats on being the July leading lady! And happy birthday too! Lovely backgrounds and adorable cards, x
Thank you Trina!
Congrats on being the July Leading Lady and Happy Birthday, too!!!
I absolutely love making watercolor backgrounds and have a huge stack of them made from old watercolor markers, leftover Easter egg dye, and most recently a falling apart kids ink pad…..all things I couldn’t bear to throw away because of the pretty inks in them. Waste not, want not…as long as you have an entire craft room to store everything in and hubby doesn’t mind things stashed in a few other places of the house, also!! Ha.
Your cards are just lovely in every way. I can’t wait to try out some of your techniques!! Looking fwd to see what you have to share with us all month long.
<3 J
jwoolbright at gmail dot com
HerPeacefulGarden.blogspot.com
Thank you Janis, I loved creating the water colored backgrounds. I need to create a stash of them too!
All cards are beautiful, Caren! All so different but equally special! I love playing with water colouring!
Thank you Helen.
Fabulous cards. Love the adorable little dancing critters and those gorgeous flowers. Great background on the love card. Thanks for sharing your creative ideas.
all your cards are beautiful, my favourite is the second one