Living In Color -- Signs Of Spring!

Today is the final day of our sneak peeks at Flourishes for our February release and the last day offers a little something extra! Not only is this final set my favorite-- gotta love these great spring images-- but the design team is putting their "focus" on watercoloring it!

The Flourishes Focus today on the Newletter is a tutorial by the fabulous Christine Okken. Not only did she give you a step by step tutorial on how to get great watercolor effects, she challenged the rest of us to pick up our waterbrushes and give it a try!

So, here's a peek at my card with the new Signs Of Spring set!

I am such a rebel, I didn't pick up my brush-- I picked up my blender pen for a faux watercolor look! Want to see how I did it??? It really is one of my favorite techniques!

I took all the colors of marker that I wanted to use for my daffodils and I scribbled them on a plastic palette. This is actually an old spacer place for my Wizard that I am now "repurposing!" I have three shades of yellow, three shades of green and two shades of brown. Christine's concept of starting light and then adding darker shades for shadows is exactly the same here, I am just going to use a blender pen to pick up my color from my palette. I start by stamping my daffodils on my tag with Palette Burnt Umber ink. It's a permanent ink that really works beautifully for not just watercolor but Copic markers too!
I started by picking up the medium brown marker from my palette to create some shadows around my image....

Then, the rest is just coloring. I started with the light yellow and then added darker shades where I thought shadows might sit. I colored my stem and leaves the same way. After I was finished, I used a texture stamp (it's one I've had forever of just dots) and I stamped all around my image using Antique Linen Distress Ink (Ranger). You could also use a stipple brush to get this effect. I also added a part of the flourish from the Wedding Essentials set in the corner to add a little extra pop along with a light green rhinestone! Distress the edges of your tag, add a little circle accent at the top from green paper plus some yellow polka dot ribbon and you're almost done! I paper pierced along the sides of some paisley decorative paper, matted my tag to this piece and then set this all on my yellow cardstock base. And... voila!

Here's a final peek!
Want to see what the rest of the DT cooked up with the Signs of Spring set and their watercolors? Just check out these fabulous ladies places!

Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Faith Hofrichter
Latisha Yoast
Laura Fredrickson
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan

So, head on over to the Flourishes Newsletter to see Christine's fabulous watercolor tutorial! While you are there, leave a comment to see if you can walk away with a Signs of Spring set of your very own! There are also details too about tonight's big Release Party! We'd love it if you came! It will be a ton of fun with games, giveaways and more peeks before the sets go live in the Flourishes store! They will be there to see in their full glory at 9 pm Central sharp!!!

TGIF! I'll see you back here soon!