A Happy Set of Birthday Cards

 I decided to put my Mama Elephant Birthday Wishes stamp set to work.  I started with white embossing the sentiment onto watercolor paper.  Occasionally,  the white wasn't super solid, so I poured additional powder over the still hot embossed sentiment and used my heat tool to melt a little more powder, creating a slightly more solid image.  I've found this technique to solve some of the ills of embossing on watercolor paper with the variable texture.   I then used my Mission Gold watercolors to create the watercolor washes, combining colors which complimented each other.  I ended up experimenting on multiple pieces and so this card set was born.   Once I had the washes completely dry, I used think watercolor to splatter and create the interesting detail on the card front.

I went looking for something to finish these off and decided to use my Cosmic Shimmer gold gilding flakes.  Using a technique similar to that found in this video, I sponged glue onto the panel edge and let the glue dry a bit before rubbing the flakes into the glue as demonstrated in the video.

Each panel was then backed with coordinating colored cardstock  and mounted onto a white card base.  I'm super pleased with how these turned out, so much so that I used one for my husband's birthday card.  Just so he knows I love him!

What have you been up to?   I don't know if I'll stop this watercolor kick I'm on.  It's been too much fun!