Garden of Grace: "My Sweet Friend" Card with Mixed Media Watercolor Flowers for Amazing Paper Graace

Welcome to my creative space!

There's just something special about sending a handcrafted card to a treasured friend and this Amazing Paper Grace My Sweet Friend die set (S5-512) is so perfect to send a sweet greeting. This set includes the sentiment dies, foliage, and darling small flowers used on this card and also includes darling tulips and the words to create a baby card when paired with "sweet": baby; girl; and boy.

The larger flowers are die cut with the Grand Cinch and Go Flowers set (S5-436) from watercolor paper that I stamped with third generation stamping, then finished with watercolors.

In the background you'll see a piece cut with the Circle Meets Square die set (S5-491) from the Classically Becca Collection.

To learn more details with close-ups, be sure to scroll down through the Tips and Techniques section below.

Thank you Amazing Paper Grace for providing the dies used in this project.

Tips and Techniques

To create these gorgeous flowers, I started with the smooth side of Distress Watercolor Paper and used third generation stamping with permanent black ink to apply the script images. Once the ink was dry, I spritzed the paper with water and applied teal, blue, and purple watercolor with a wash brush randomly over the surface.

Once the watercolor was dry, I die cut the flowers and spritzed the back of the paper lightly with water before shaping the petals and finished by gluing the petal sections together with each layer of petals offset from the layer below. (This is placing the petals of one layer between the petals of the adjoining layer for an organic feel.) I then pulled stamen through the center hole to finish the blossoms.

This technique can be used with any dies for truly one of a kind mixed media flowers.

This lovely sentiment is cut from green patterned paper, then inked with Peeled Paint Distress Ink to add more visual dimension. I offset layered two pieces for "sweet." The bottom layer is inked more heavily with the same color to add a shadow effect. I also cut the words my and friend from thin chipboard and layered the colored piece on top to provide more stability and dimension.

I used the scrap pieces of the stamped watercolor paper to die cut these smaller blossoms. They are simply glued together with no shaping. Placing them around the card helps tie in the colors from the main cluster and pulls your eye across the card.

Mixed media texture is added around the bottom of the cluster by brushing with soft matte gel medium and sprinkling on light yellow and green prills. The gel medium dries matte and clear, so isn't visible on the finished card, so you can loosely sprinkle on the prills.

After adhering the yellow background die cut, the background was spattered with black India ink.

The darling metal bee is from a bag of bee charms I purchased on Amazon. I brushed it with white gesso, then used a fine round tip paint brush to apply Finnabair waxes to color it. You could also use acrylic paints as well.

The little fluttering butterflies are wood veneer, but could also be chipboard or die cuts. I painted them in coordinating colors to the flowers, then applied holographic embossing powder for a bit of glittering bling. One is even resting on a blossom in the cluster.

The gorgeous leafy flora is die cut with dies from the My Sweet Friend die set (S5-512) using the same patterned paper as the sentiment and is also inked.

Below you can find the products I used to create this project including some with compensated affiliate links to Scrapbook.com. These links are at absolutely no cost to you. When you shop through the links below, I receive a small commission from Scrapbook.com. These commissions help me cover the costs of my blog and other expenses, which allows me to continue to provide you with FREE inspiration along with Tips and Techniques provided for every project. Thank you so much for your love and support!

Supplies:

Amazing Paper Grace:

Paper: