Blossom invitation

For those of you following the thrilling saga of the unreliable internet here at the InvisiblePinkLair, I can tell you the internet is still acting up. It works from time to time and hopefully until I get this blogpost done. Yesterday it was completely dead all evening. I suffered horribly from withdrawal... but it gave me time to sit down, take a time out and practice my watercolouring skills. I still have so much to learn, but at least I had a great time! I'm not the one to give out advice, but one thing I have learned is it's no use trying to watercolour unless you have good quality watercolour paper. And I have to try and find a better aqua brush, the cheap one I am using is leaking all over the place.

This card is an invitation for a garden/BBQ party we are having in June, so I used the garden as my inspiration. The apple tree is in full blossom right now, so I picked the colours from there. I was also inspired by four challenges. This week's Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge is "Big Stamp", and I used not one but two big stamps for my card. For the background, I used the lovely Hardwood background stamp. For the main image I used a flower stamp which was a freebie with last month's Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. Isn't it the perfect stamp for watercolouring? I'm not very good with watercolours, but I figured practice makes... if not perfect, at least a bit less bad. And this week's Pink Elephant Challenge is "Watercolour", so that gave me the inspiration to give it a go. I was also inspired by this week's Muse (see below), with the floral focal piece, watercolour and woodgrain background. Last but not least, the layout is inspired by this week's RetroSketch (also below) which is so lovely.

I stamped the flower stamp in grey and heat embossed with clear, fine embossing powder. This helps keeping the colours within the lines. I then used numerous Tim Holtz distress inks and an Aqua-Flo brush to do the colouring. I stamped the hardwood stamp two times next to each other in grey ink to create the background. I matted both panels onto Weathered Wood card, and tied a pink ribbon around the floral panel. To finish, I printed the word "Invitation" onto vellum using a free font called Xiomara, die cut and attached everything to the card. Despite the slightly patchy colouring, I think it turned out rather nice, simple enough with very spring-inspired colours.

Card: Craft UK Ltd kraft card, Daler&Rowney 190 gsm watercolour paper, Hobbycraft 190 gsm cream cardstock, Tim Holtz Core'dinations Distress card in Weathered Wood, Dovecraft Premium Vellum 110 gsm
Stamps: Stampin' Up Hardwood, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady Jumbo background stamp (free with the March issue of Cardmaking & Papercraft)
Inks: Stampin' Up Basic Gray, Tim Holtz Distress markers Bundled Sage, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry, Picket Fence, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmelade, Spun Sugar, Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet, Weathered Wood and Worn Lipstick
Other: Stampin' Up Chalk Talk dies, pink ribbon from my stash, Ranger super fine detail embossing powder