You’re Like, Really Pretty – Watercolored Bella Flora

Hello, Roadies! Ashlea here and I am so happy to be back to share my watercolored Bella Flora card with you. Now, like many 20-something (fine, I’m 30) I’m a huge Mean Girls fan. It got me through my late teens – early 20’s and I could quote it all day long. And I do. Just ask my family who completely miss all of my references. It’s fine, I’m over it. Anyway; how beautiful is the Bella Flora set?! It’s so beautiful, I’d go so far as to say it’s…bella. No? Okay, I’m done with corny jokes I promise!

To watercolor these florals, I first stamped them in VersaFine Onyx Black Ink and embossed them with clear embossing powder. I prefer watercoloring this way because I can always be sure that the ink won’t run. There’s nothing worse than getting half way through designing a card to have the ink smudge and completely ruin your entire day. We’ve all been there. Crafty friends don’t let crafty friends ruin projects!

• After stamping and clear embossing each floral arrangement on watercolor paper, choose your watercolors (I chose a bright pink and green). Apply them to each flower and leaf only after wetting each with your paint brush. Wet on wet is my favorite look for watercolored images. I think it gives such an artistic look.
• Fussy cut (OR USE THE NEW BELLA FLORA DIES!!) the images out. Don’t get too fussy with your fussy cutting. You’ll be putting it on watercolor paper that matches the paper you’ve stamped it on, so there won’t be much difference between the background for the stamped images and the card front your adhering them to.
• Use a black watercolor and get a large round paint brush wet and saturated with the black color. Tap it against your finger over a piece of 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ piece of watercolor card stock (the same you used to stamp the images). This will create a deeper watercolor look to your card. I love using this splatter technique to add interest to my watercolor cards.
• Arrange the cut floral images in the center of your splattered card front and adhere them with foam tape. It should hang a bit off of the edge for this design. I love the dimension and interest a card has when the die cuts or focused images extend past the parameters of the card base.
• After stamping and embossing the quote “You’re Like, Really Pretty”, cut it out using scissors or a paper trimmer and adhere it to the center of the floral image arrangement.

I just love this look on cards. I love when I can combine artistic with clean and simple and let each of my loves shine through. These are the types of cards I use in my craft room as inspiration and reminders to be grateful and kind to myself.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning a bit about how I created this watercolored card! I love seeing your creations with this set and I always gain so much inspiration from you all. Thank you again, and I will see you very soon!