Happy Little Stampers July Watercolor Challenge!

I was thrilled to see an optional Christmas theme for this month's Watercolor Challenge!  I was also excited to dig out my stash of shimmer paints (that I haven't used in years) for this challenge.  It's been so long, I needed a quick review on YouTube to brush up on the proper use of them.  I'm glad I did, as I forgot about wetting them and letting them sit for about five minutes to get a nice gummy consistency in order to pick up all the shimmery color with a brush.  (It appears the Luminart Twinkling H20's are discontinued, but I'm sure any metallic paint will work.)

Once I found the perfect Penny Black cling stamp (la fleur rouge), I grabbed The Misti and began the technique of painting directly on the rubber, misting with a spritz of water and stamping onto watercolor paper (Strathmore).  At first, I worked on painting the flowers, letting them dry and moving onto the leaves and stems.  I even laid another panel of watercolor paper on top of the first dry panel, spritzed the rubber again and pressed another image!  If certain areas weren't well defined, I proceeded to paint where color was needed.  I repeated this step four times with great results!

The Noel card has a lovely painted gold edge.  To achieve that, I masked a border with drafting tape (my go to removable tape) and it worked great!  To add further interest, I splattered the panel with the same gold paint.  A Spellbinders Holiday Sentiments die word is all it needed to finish the card.

The Joy card is painted using the exact technique as described above.  For this card, I left the panel as is.

The last card, Merry, is a closeup to show more of the yummy shimmer!  It was mounted on coordinating green cardstock with a narrow strip of red metallic cardstock mounted vertically behind the panel.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN