Hand Penned Summer Blog Hop

Our blog hop theme this month was summer and DSP, which to me means a beautiful wedding card!  I am thrilled with how my project turned out, using some of my favourite new products.

I started with a thick white top-folding card base and added a white panel die cut with the amazing Stitched Leaves Die.  You are going to see me use that die A LOT.  It is just beautiful and I love the look of stitched backgrounds so I was thrilled to see Stampin' Up! have a product in this catalogue.

I used the Penned Flowers Dies for my focal point, but I knew I wanted it to be super soft and romantic so instead of stamping the image I watercoloured it and then used the outline die to cut it out. 

Start by cutting a piece of watercolour paper about 1" bigger than your die. Lay the outline die on top of the paper and use it as a guide for laying down your watercolour.  This ensure you get the right colours where you want them, but still gives you the free-flowing feeling of watercolour.

Using Granny Apple Green ink, colour in the leaf areas of the die.  I wanted to have the edges of my die cut white, so I put the die on my paper cutting side down, which gave me a nice outline in white.  Allow the green ink to dry (if you're impatient like me you can speed up the drying process with your heat gun!).

Then add the Polished Pink ink in watercolour for the flowers and allow that to dry.  

For some added interest I added splatter in Basic Black, Polished Pink and Granny Apple Green by flicking the brush end of my Blends against the cap.  This works so well!!!  

I decided to add a watercolour ombre wash flag to anchor my focal point, in Granny Apple Green.  This is a great way to practice your watercolouring as it is incredibly forgiving....just keep going over it until you love the look!

I adore delicate die cuts and am kicking myself for not using Adhesive Sheets before--they make it SO DARN EASY  to adhere intricate dies to your project without ending up with a gooey, sticky mess from liquid adhesive.  Genius!!  

For the DSP component of my card I die cut a circle of metallic gold striped paper from the Expressions In Ink Specialty Designer Paper pack.  I love that Stampin' Up!'s products coordinate across suites, and this paper was perfect for this card.  I layered the DSP circle on a Polished Pink scalloped circle from the Layered Circle Dies set.

I heat embossed my sentiment ( from the Art Gallery set) in Gold Embossing Powder and trimmed the edges on an angle.  Both the die cut and the sentiment are popped up on dimensionals for some depth.  I added a double-bow of Gold Shimmer Ribbon for the finishing touch, along with some Gilded Gems.

I kept the pretty going on the inside of my card, adding a Polished Pink base behind my white panel and another strip of that beautiful gold DSP.  Use every inch!!  The "so very happy for you" sentiment was stamped in Polished Pink and comes from the Color &  Contour set.

There is still lots to see!  Hop along to the crafters below to see what they created this month too.  :)

Leena – A La Cards

 Sandy – Lolly & Sand

Jen – StampingJen

Leigh – SimpLeigh Stamping

Laurel – Laurel DavisCrafted

Thanks so much for stopping by, if you have any questions or comments please leave me a message.  I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Crafting,

Barb