Hello crafty friends. I hope you are well and are staying safe and out of harm’s way. Here in Japan, most things, including my son’s school have been cancelled through March, so I find myself with more time on my hands than usual, and colouring is a good way to relieve stress, so that’s how I’m spending part of each day, once I’ve done the day’s chores.

I have a card to share with you today that uses one of my favourite mediums (or should that be media?) – watercolour.

I first stamped and heat embossed this bouquet image called Beautiful Day from Paper Rose Studio in Silver Pearl Embossing powder from Ranger. It us a pearly colour and gives a softness that the white embossing powder doesn’t.

I have a mix of watercolours on my palette. I had some Daniel Smith colours that I was given as a birthday present when I was in Australia. Since I’ve come to Japan, I occasionally buy one or two tubes of either Holbein or Windsor and Newton paints when I go to Tokyo. There is very little in Japan as far as cardmaking supplies goes, but art supplies are less than half the price that they are in Australia, so I’m stocking up little by little. Lately I’ve been buying pinks and greens, so that I don’t have to mix them all from scratch every time and try to guess how much I’ll need.

I coloured this image by putting concentrated colour down in each petal near the centre of the flower, and slowly working it out and watering it down towards the edges of the petal. I laid the colour down in three washes, changing the colour slightly with each layer.

Once the painting was complete and dry, I splashed some perfect pearls mix over the whole picture. When that dried, I covered the flowers (mostly and loosely) with some scrap paper and splashed on some red and green.

Finally, I trimmed the watercolour panel and scuffed up the edges. There are fabulous tools out there to do this job, but I used my thumb nail, and it handled the task just fine! The sentiment is from the Lovely Florals – Blossoms stamp set. This is one of my go to sets for friendship and encouragement sentiments.

Thank you for stopping by today. I’m always humbled that people take the time to visit my blog and see what I’ve been up to. If you’re interested in seeing more of my cards, feel free to visit my Instagram feed, where I share a lot more.

Until next time, may your days contain a whole lotta lovely

Blessings,

Donna