Bear Hug - watercolour, die cutting, embossing

A bear just wants to give you a hug for your birthday. My card features Unity Stamps, Tonic Studios dies, embossing, and watercolouring.

Putting It Together

For the concept of this card, I started with three challenges: Unity {Show & Tell}'s current challenge for watercolour, colours from Your Next Stamp, and a sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges.

The sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges got me thinking about a nested diamond dies from Tonic Studies that I recently acquired. 

I did a dry fit with the dies and a couple Unity stamps to start building an idea. I do a lot of dry fitting while I am creating.

Next, the colours: white, tan/kraft, teal, blue, raspberry. The challenge stipulates using at least three.

For white and the first application of teal, I decided to emboss the glorious background stamp on white pearlised paper.

I stamped the bear on watercolour paper and die cut the three diamonds. Since the centre diamond overlaps the side ones, I could use just the one embossed image. One of the bottom diamonds has a small missing area at the inner corner but it's completely hidden.

I decided to use the watercolour paint wheel since I haven't used it in a while. It's a compact set, each wheel locks into the others to make a nice little tower with a clear cover that's also a mixing tray. I used waterbrushes 'cause I love having the wet or damp brush without having clean and dirty water basins.

I decided to take a tiny shortcut and use a 'watercolour' patterned paper pack for the strips.

I adhered the strips to the kraft card base with the edges hanging over.

It's a lot easier to trim flush to the cardbase than to try to get a cut strip to fit perfectly.

For the overlapping diamonds, I first adhered the small diamonds to the back of the big one and then added foam mounting tape to the whole unit.

And... all done with the front.

Inside, I stamped the background stamp I embossed on the front with Versamark ink and heat set it for a tone on tone look. I then added a sentiment from one more stamp set. June has turned out to be a birthday month for me. I think I have made more birthday cards this month than any other.

Supplies

Challenges

Unity {Show & Tell}: Watercolour

Crazy 4 Challenges: Sketch C4C439

Your Next Stamp: Colours #91

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