Sun Catcher

Today is our older daughter’s birthday; she has left her teens behind. For ten months we had three teens in the house. For her card I decided to try something I have been thinking about for a while. For a change I used cold pressed watercolour paper; it has more texture than the hot pressed. I taped it to a cutting mat and then swiped distress stains across it. I spritzed with water and my pearl-ex spray (pearl-ex interference gold mixed with water) to blend the colours, then let it dry.The blended stains dried with the ‘S’ shaped watermark so I lined up the edge of the petals on the stencil with the watermark to make the most of the ‘sunburst’ look. Really does look like a ‘sun catcher’. I taped down the stencil and dabbed at the poppy image with a baby wipe. It took a while to dilute the colour but it worked and it paid not to rub the paper as that causes pilling. The stems were trickier; you can see they look a little rough.

I stamped the sentiment in gold first but it was a little pale so I stamped over the top with sepia and the effect is a muted gold edge to the text.

Supplies:

Stamps: Flourish Birthday (PB) 
Stencils:  Suncatcher (PB)
Inks:  Versafine Vintage Sepia & Encore Gold (Imagine Craft/Tsukineko)
Stains: Barn Door, Bundled Sage, Mustard Seed Distress Stains (Ranger)
Paper: Cold pressed watercolour paper  Neenah Natural White 110lb
Also: Pearl Ex spray Interference Gold