Pine Cone Watercolor Card

I like to keep up with what is going on in the stamping world, so I was looking around at the new website for Serendipity Stamps yesterday and saw this image that I had but had not used. I decided to take a moment and do a holly project. A holly project is one that I want to do, just because I want to do it! Most of my time is spent working on projects for EK Success Brands, for which I feel so fortunate, but once in a while I do something with an image or product just to have fun. Those are the ones I can post on my blog, whereas the ones I am doing for the CAT (Creative Artist Team) for EK Success, I can not as they are for specific purposes. That is one reason I have had less paper crafting here on the blog. With my work, walking, going to WW and various other projects I find myself involved in (like making twenty recipes of my broccoli casserole recipe last Saturday for a benefit dinner)....as well as a few trips thrown in here and there.....I stay pretty busy!

Anyway, I love nature, so I loved this image of a pine cone in a basket and a couple of pecans still in their hulls. I also love watercolor, so that was my technique for coloring the image. I stamped the image in black with a waterproof ink and then painted the watercolor, working from pot paints. You can even use the Crayola sets of paints if that is all you have. It is important to work on watercolor paper. I added some shading and some spattering.

I also did some "paper shaping" or water embossing, making the pecans and some of the thingys on the pine cone stand out. I simply used a stylus to trace the parts I wanted to emboss, with the stamped and painted image lying on a mouse pad or fun foam. Flipped the image over and then embossed more within the traced lines. It manipulates the fibers of the watercolor paper and makes the pecans look more three dimensional. I love to use the EK Empressor for shaping the paper, once the tracing has been done.

I accented the card with some torn paper which had been distressed. The card is card stock from my favorite Tim Coffey autumn paper pad from K & Company (I never can get away from EK Success Brands as I love their products....makes it nice working for them!) and those little wood pieces that I found in the floral department at Walmart.

I love Serendipity Stamps and have for years....be sure to go check out her new website. I think I have some Inkadinkado stamps that I want to do a holly project with also, but I think that I will share some Perler tips first....tomorrow!