Yippee for Yana: Messy Watercolor Mother’s Day Card

Yippee for Yana

Hi friends! Happy Wednesday! Please join me in welcoming the always awesome Yana Smakula in our Yippee for Yana series where she is making a special Mother’s Day card in honor of this weekend’s upcoming holiday, but really you could take this design and make a card for any occasion! Be sure to read on and watch the video for more information! Enjoy!

Yippee for Yana: Messy Mother's Day Card

Hi everyone, this is Yana Smakula, welcome back for another Yippee For Yana video!

In this episode, I’m sharing easy and messy watercolor floral card Mother’s Day card using some older goodies from Simon Says Stamp. I know how much you enjoy watching tutorials using not only new but also older products so I’m hoping you’ll find this video useful.

Yippee for Yana: Messy Mother's Day Card

The main stamp set I’m using today is the Sketched Flowers 6×8 clear stamp set by Simon.

I also have a “Happy Mother’s Day” sentiment stamp from another stamp set, called Mom Flowers. I also used a sub sentiment from here, another sentiment for the inside of the card and also a coordinating die.

I wanted to do simple and messy watercoloring. I started working on this card by prepping cardstock for heat embossing. I wanted to heat emboss image outlines to simplify the watercoloring. When I have raised outlines to my images I find that I can watercolor faster, as I am not afraid to go outside the lines, the embossed outlines help me stay inside the image boundaries.

The paper I am using today is actually not a watercolor paper, it is regular cardstock. This Neenah Desert Storm 80lb cardstock. I picked this paper for my card today because I wanted my watercoloring to have a nonwhite background to it, but I didn’t really want to spend the time coloring the background itself.

Yippee for Yana: Messy Mother's Day Card

I’ve done it in the past – I would color the images themselves and would later come in and also color the background to whatever color I wanted. Results are usually phenomenal, but this is also a very time-consuming process. A way around is to use colored paper right away.

I stamped images and sentiment on the front panel, covered them with Hero Arts White Detail embossing powder and heat set.

Now comes the fun part! Coloring! Similar to my previous Simon Says Stamp video I used my Daniel Smith Watercolors and a water brush.

You would think that watercolor would not show or would not work on kraft paper, but if in fact does work beautifully. Yes, the colors are not as vibrant and saturated as they would have been on white, the kraft color of the paper does dull some of the colors, but water coloring on kraft still works.

Yippee for Yana: Messy Mother's Day Card

I started by coloring leaves using Serpentine Genuine and also Sap Green colors for some shading. Next, I used Quinacridone Rose, Opera Pink, Imperial Purple (although this is one of the colors that turned muddy, I later colored over it with PhtalhoTurquoise), Cadmium Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Gold, and Quinacridone DeepGold.

The trick to coloring on non-watercolor paper is using very little water. This kind of paper is not designed to take and hold water so you need to go easy on the amount of water you add with your watercolors. Using a water brush here helps me as I know exactly how much water is coming out and I can control the amount of water to make sure I’m not letting too much out and not over saturating my paper.

After the coloring was done, I added a generous spritz of Hero Arts Iridescent Shimmer. This is step number one to make the watercolor piece messy. Next, I used some white acrylic paint, diluted it with water and splattered onto the card rather heavily.

At this point, I felt like the sentiment was lost on this card, so I decided to use a coordinating die from the Mom’s Flowers stamp set and die cut word MOM into this panel. My plan was to inlay it back in but with the help of thin foam adhesive to pop it up just a tad on the card.

Yippee for Yana: Messy Mother's Day Card

I inlaid it back into the background and added the negative piece from the letter O back into the background to make it look solid.

Finally, I outlined the die cut letters to help them stand out a little bit on the card. The coordinating stamp is a solid one and while I could have used it, I didn’t want to have solid stamping on these letters, I only wanted an outline, so I drew one myself using a white pen. This ended up looking like the MOM outline was positioned under all of the florals on the background as if it was masked.

The messiness of this card disguised any of the imperfect hand-drawn lines on the word MOM and helped them blend and become a part of the design.

I also used a few sequins from my stash to add some sparkle to the card front and finally stamped another message on the inside of the card.

I hope you will give this idea a try!

WATCH THE VIDEO:

SUPPLIES:

Simon Says Clear Stamps SKETCHED…
[ SSS ]
Simon Says Clear Stamps MOM FLOWERS…
[ SSS ]
Simon Says Stamp BOLD MOM Wafer Dies…
[ SSS ]
MISTI MEMORY MISTI PRECISION STAMPER…
[ SSS ]
Neenah Environment 80 LB SMOOTH…
[ SSS ]
Neenah Classic Crest 110 LB SMOOTH…
[ SSS ]
Simon Says Stamp Pigment Ink Pad…
[ SSS ]
EK Success POWDER TOOL Applicator…
[ SSS ]
Hero Arts EMBOSS WHITE DETAIL…
[ SSS ]
Precision Heat Embossing Tool Gun…
[ SSS ]
Spellbinders DEEP SEA Die Cutting and…
[ SSS ]
Medium WATERCOLOR BRUSH Pen MWCBP101
[ SSS ]
Hero Arts WHITE IRIDESCENT SHIMMER…
[ SSS ]
Simon Says Stamp Card Stock 100# DOLL…
[ SSS ]
Daniel Smith SERPENTINE GENUINE 5ML…
[ SSS ]
Daniel Smith SAP GREEN 5ML Extra Fine…
[ SSS ]
Daniel Smith QUINACRIDONE ROSE 5ML…
[ SSS ]
Daniel Smith OPERA PINK 5ML Extra…
[ SSS ]
Daniel Smith QUINACRIDONE GOLD 5ML…
[ SSS ]

Thanks so much for stopping by and thanks to Yana for being our guest!

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  1. Stunning card Yana, I love that you used coloured cardstock to stamp and watercolour on.
    Thank you so much for this stunning inspiration.

  2. Thank you for some wonderful ideas for my Mother’s Day Card. I love the idea of embossing the flowers so you can color them more easily. I don’t have water colors but I am thinking of trying this with distress oxide.

  3. The card looks like vintage material
    for a dress I had many years ago.
    The pastel colors are great.
    thanks for sharing
    txmlhl(at)yahoo(dot)com

  4. This is so beautiful Yana and I am loving the water colouring on regular cs… I am so going to try it as soon as I can, it is really beautiful.

  5. Beautiful card! I love the look of the watercolouring on craft, and your diecut MOM looks fantastic with the hand-drawn border.

  6. Would never have thought to watercolor on kraft stock…thanks for sharing this idea. The results are lovely.

  7. Your cards are always to gorgeous but each time I see a new one I am still wowed! This is just beautiful.

  8. Yana makes watercoloring look so easy. This is stunning! I wish I had just a smidgeon of her talent.

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