Watercolor woes into watercolor wonders...
February 19, 2016
If you’re like me, your watercolor projects don’t always turn out as well as you had hoped…maybe that background didn’t end up the right color, or the colors didn’t blend as well as you had hoped. For whatever reason, you just weren’t happy with the result. I have a whole stack of watercolored panels on my desk that didn’t make the cut — until now! I decided to selvage these pieces and put them to work by die cutting them. It’s a great way to use just the pretty parts of the paper and hide those not-so-great parts. I hate to let that precious watercolor paper go to waste!
I have four projects to share with you today, all using panels of watercolor paper that were lying on my desk as rejects from other projects. It was also a great chance to play around with the new Papertrey Ink February stamps and dies a little more.
This first project uses some watercoloring that I did with my new Zig Clean Color Pens. I was just getting the hang of them, and didn't like the way the whole panel of paper looked, but it worked perfectly for diecutting some flowers using the Color Pop Floral kit. I strategically placed my dies to cut the pretty parts of the paper and leave behind the parts that I wasn't so happy with.
I stamped the details on the flowers using the stamps in the Color Pop Floral kit and then layered them over a Cover Plate: Gem Stone diecut. The sentiment stamped inside the frame is from the Phrases & Praises set. This card came together so quickly! I let those pretty watercolored diecuts do all the work for me.
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My next card uses some more watercolor rejects, of course. :-) This time I diecut them using the What the Doodle: Butterfly dies. Then I stamped the What the Doodle: Butterfly images with Versamark ink and heat embossed them with white powder for a really pretty, lacy look.
I stenciled a bit of pattern in the background with the Modern Backgrounds stencils and stamped the birthday sentiment from the Tulip Time set. I'm so glad I didn't toss those watercolored papers!
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My next card uses a watercolor panel that I did with my Clean Color pens and I just wasn't happy with how muddled the colors got. But when I diecut it with the Cover Plate: Scroll Frame it looked pretty enough to use.
I stamped some Tulip Time tulips using Winter Wisteria ink -- I skipped stamping the base layer of the tulips and just stamped the detail layers with Winter Wisteria ink, inspired by these beauties...
I stamped the "new beginnings" sentiment and butterflies, also from the Tulip Time set.
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My last card for today feels a bit like cheating. Super-duper simple. I just took one of my reject watercolored panels and diecut it with the Paper Clippings: Happy Day die.
I attached it to a panel of Linen cardstock which I sponged just a bit around the edges, and that is seriously it! I just let the pretty watercolors take center stage. I played around with adding some sequins or layered flowers or something, but in the end decided to just leave it be...so quick and easy!
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What do you think? Are you ready to put some of your watercolor rejects to use and create something beautiful? Or maybe all of your projects turn out great the first time around. :-) I had so much fun with this, that I was thinking it might be fun to create some watercolored panels to have on hand just for diecutting -- when my reject pile gets used up that is!