Watercoloured Fern

Hi everyone.  Today I'm honoring my friend Nancy from SCS (stiz2003) ... she is Queen for the Day this week and not only is she an amazingly talented card maker, but she also leaves the most encouraging and supportive messages.  Thank you Nancy!!

I CASE'd this card of Nancy's, focusing on her beautiful leaf die-cut.  I don't have any of the gold leafing that she used, instead I watercolored my fern die-cut using diluted green re-inkers and some gold paint.  Thank you for the inspiration Nancy.  Enjoy your week!! :)

I had fun playing with inks and water for this card and found an easy way for me to "watercolor".  First I die-cut the fern from watercolor paper.  Then I used my painter's palette to mix up three separate pools of green ink, diluted with water (pear pizzazz, old olive and garden green).  I misted my leaf with water and then used a paint brush and add lots of the lightest green, basically covering the whole fern.  I dried the fern with my heat tool, which also sets the colors.  I repeated this twice more: using the medium green and then drying; and then using the darkest green and then drying.  The darker the shade, the less I added, concentrating more on the center of the leaf (leaving the lighter shade showing more at the tips of the leaves).  After drying for the last time, I splattered my fern with A LOT with garden green and diluted gold paint.  So happy with how it turned out.  And absolutely no stress, which isn't always the case for me when watercoloring :)

This is also for this week's challenge at SCS, CAS #275 - Quick and Stackable.  It's not a super quick card, but the majority of the time was drying with my heat tool ... so it was simple.  I popped up the fern, but it could as easily been glued flush on the card front.  Either way, it's fairly thin and easy to mail. :)

That's it for me today ... off to play and make a few more of these! :)

Stamps:  Sunny Sentiments (Amy R)
Paper:  110 lb. white (Neenah); Watercolor (Arches 140 lb. cold press)
Ink:  Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Garden Green (SU!)
Accessories & Tools:  Big Shot, Fern die (Cheery Lynn), paint brush, paint palette, water mister, Gold acrylic paint (Lumiere)

Challenges:
SCS - QFTD214
SCS - CAS #275