Watercolored Coffee Cups

If you've never watercolored a stamped image, you are missing out on a very relaxing, satisfying experience. This card came into being because I kept a piece of leftover watercolor paper from the last card I made using the Morning Cup set. This time, instead of letting the coffee ring stand on its own, it became a sort of border for my main image, a stack of coffee cups.

I stamped them in Early Espresso classic ink and immediately applied Clear Embossing Powder to it so that I could create a waterproof image that wouldn't smear. SU! carries a Brown Staz-On ink, which is waterproof by design, but I don't have it, so I tried this to see if it would work, since liquid on watercolor paper doesn't absorb immediately. It worked!

Then I chose my color palette. When I started as a demonstrator with SU!, I only had the earthtone color family, now called the Regals Collection. i am drawn to these colors in fall, for obvious reasons. I used Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, and Old Olive. I squeezed the felt pads and transferred the ink to the lid and used the finer of the two tips of the Aqua Painter to do my painting. I also created a bit of a grounding shadow around the cups using River Rock.

I mounted the piece on River Rock because the card base was also in that color. Not sure why I chose that when Early Espresso was the obvious choice. It just seemed too dark. I crafted a matting that reused the colors in my palette. They were just scraps and I like the DD piece in particular. The piece of hardware store twine adds a nice touch too.

Initially, I watercolored this percolator for use on the outside, but I couldn't figure out a way to incorporate it. I put in on the inside as a way to extend the card's motif. While I usually choose to color objects in a way that reflects the way they look in real life, I let myself play with this.

Now to figure out which one of my coffee loving friends to send this to...