The last purchase I made before committing to a buying freeze until I used my NBUS that had literally piled up was the most recent Gina K kit. They are a great value and this one focused on flowers which I use over and over again. It took quite some time for the kit to arrive, but it came this week and I was excited to start with this lovely image of daffodils. Although they are definitely one of my favorite flowers, I didn't have a single set with daffodils. I decided I wanted to use watercolors and stamped the daffodils twice---once with black ink and then white embossed them. I chose the white embossed ones to start with.
One of the issues I've always had with white embossed images on white watercolor paper is being able to see the outlines clearly. Tracy gave me a slant board for Christmas, and it worked perfectly. The work is just at just the right angle so it's easy to see. There are clips to hold the paper and it's magnetic so I used magnets on the bottom of the paper to hold it steady.
Recently I've gone back to my Daniel Smith paints in a palette I set up years ago. Of all the watercolors I own, they are the best quality and the more I use them the better I get at mixing just the colors I want. I chose my color palette from the CAS Colours and Sketches Challenge which seemed just perfect for daffodils.
The sentiment is also from the Easter Blessings set. I love the elegant font. Once the watercoloring was done, I did a bit of shading with Polychromos pencils, stamped the sentiment and die cut it with the smaller layer from Gina K's Master Layout set. Then I used the larger layer to die cut a saffron layer and added it to a green card base.
Since we'll be away for Easter, I'll be sending this to my mother-in-law. I'm thinking that nearly everyone in Tracy's family will have had both vaccinations by Easter, and may be able to gather for the first time in over a year. We'll be in Wisconsin with my daughter and her family.
I'm also sending this card to the Happy Little Stampers: Watercolor (Anything Goes) and NBUS.
