Watercolor Wonderland with Erum Tasneem featuring Winter Garden

Hi there everyone! Erum Tasneem here, and I am thrilled to be a guest here at the Spellbinders blog today, featuring the gorgeous Winter Garden Collection by Susan Tierney-Cockburn.

I followed a watercolor theme for my trio of cards here. My Christmas cards are a little different from your typical holiday cards, but that's alright :) I had an absolute blast creating them.

I started by applying water onto watercolor cardstock and dropping a teal color pigment. I used a pan set; you may use any watercolor medium. Next, I spread this around and created drips. I made sure to keep the concentration of pigment towards the upper half of the panel and decrease it as I moved downwards. Once happy, I set it aside to dry. For the flowers, die-cut several layers of flowers using the Jasmine Etched Dies, and the smaller buds you see are from the Winter Evergreen Foliage and Ladybugs Etched Dies. The tiny buds are the ladybugs from the set.

Spritz the die-cuts with water and apply a light pink color wash over the layers. Add concentrated pigment to the center of the die-cut and let it spread. Color the leaves in the same way. On the watercolor panel, add black paint splatters and then arrange the floral die-cuts. Add white and some metallic splatters if you like the look. Embellish with pearls and gems to make the arrangement look fuller. Stamp the sentiment from the Winter Garden Sentiments Stamp Set. To finish, adhere the panel to a card base.

For the second card, I began by applying water to the center portion of A2 watercolor cardstock, avoiding the periphery of the panel. Next, I dropped a vibrant ruby red colored pigment from a watercolor brush marker. You may use any watercolor medium you wish. I also added a few splatters of the same to give an artsy look. Set aside to dry or use a heat tool.

For the flowers, die-cut the Helleborus (Christmas Rose) Etched Dies several times to make one complete and one smaller flower out of the smaller layers. I used regular cream-colored cardstock and inked the edges using cream-colored dye ink. Use any yellow ink/paint for the flower centers. To make the leaves, I used a tool with a fine point and etched faux veins and then applied mossy green inks to color the leaves. Before arranging the florals onto the card front, I added splatters of gold paint and heat embossed a sentiment from Winter Garden Sentiments Stamp Set in gold embossing powder. To finish, I adhered some shiny gold sequins.

My last card features the Winter Evergreen Foliage and Ladybugs Etched Dies from the Winter Garden Collection. I die cut these out of black cardstock and pressed them gently onto an embossing ink pad. Next, I covered the die-cuts with Black Diamond Embossing Powder by Judkins and heat set them. After this, I worked on the background. I applied water to an A2 watercolor cardstock and added dark blue pigment. I kept the concentration slightly diluted at the lower-left portion of the panel. To intensify the depth at the top-most portion, I also added a bit of black and mixed it with the blue pigment. Next, I used the heat tool to dry the panel and adhered it to the card base.

I then adhered all the glittery die-cut pieces and added tons of splatters of white, metallic silver, and blue watercolor to show my snowy scene. Once I was happy with the look, I adhered the sentiment from the Winter Garden Sentiments Stamp Set, layered with a silver glitter cardstock mat. To finish, I adhered a few sequins. I hope you liked the cards and were inspired to create your own watercolor creations! Thank you for stopping by!

Other supplies

Watercolor cardstock, Watercolor pan set, Metallic watercolor (for splatters), Watercolor brush markers, Liquid adhesive, Cream-colored cardstock, Gold embossing powder, Black ink, Silver glitter cardstock, Pearls/gems/sequins (embellishments).