Hello!  Can you believe that Christmas will be here in less than 4 months?  Yikes!  If you’ve been playing along all year with 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, you probably have a good supply of Christmas cards all ready to go for the holiday season.  I prefer that the cards my family sends out to be all the same design, but I’ve been letting my 52CCT cards accumulate to donate to Send a Smile 4 Kids.

This week we have a technique challenge for our participants to try:  watercoloring.  There are lots of ways you can go about this.  You may use a watercolor wash for a background, you can color images; basically you can do whatever strikes your fancy so long as watercoloring is involved.

I actually have two nice sets of watercolor paints but I haven’t made the time to do much with them.  This challenge was the push I needed to go for it.  I decided to be brave and try using them to color images.  I was heavily inspired by Maaike U.’s card and tutorial from last year.  I used her technique of making a template using circular dies and tracing it with a stylus to create the ornament shapes on the watercolor paper.  Then I painted the ornaments.  I actually made two card fronts so I could work with both sets of watercolors.  The card I’m sharing here is the one I liked better.  I used Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors on this one.  I have the set of 36 paints, and one of them is a gorgeous pale silvery-white shimmer that mixed well with the colored paints.  I freehand painted the white “glare marks” and the ornament hangers.  Once everything was good and dry, I drew in the ornament strings and stamped the sentiment.  A simple mat and a card base later, and my card was done.  Considering it was the first time I’d used this set of paints, I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out, but I do realize that I need to work on my shading and light areas when I color.

Here’s a second photo that does a better job of showing the shimmer of the watercolor paint and the copper cardstock mat, although the colors of the ornaments look paler than true to life:

It’s holiday challenge week at Addicted to Stamps and More, so I’m going to share this card there.

Now it’s your turn to visit the 52CCT blog and see what the rest of the design team has created this week!  Then pull out your watercolors and show us what you can do with this technique.  Link your card to the challenge site by 7:00 p.m. Eastern time Friday, September 2.  We’d love to have you join us!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies:
Stamp: Holiday Script (Lizzie Anne Designs for Gourmet Rubber Stamps)
Cardstock: Raspberry Ripple, Brushed Copper (Stampin’ Up); The Langton Prestige Extra Smooth Hot Press watercolor paper (Daler-Rowney)
Ink: Copper (ColorBox)
Other: Gansai Tambi watercolor paints (Kuretake); multiliner pen (Copic)