Lots of hugs

This is the title of my challenge for the Clean and Simple Challenge at Splitcoaststampers on Monday. I am not fussed on real balloons, but I love to see balloons on cards, and it is my birthday, so I would like to see lots of balloons.

I am using a stamp set by Penny Black called Sweet Wishes that I have had for awhile, yet I think this is the first time that I have inked it up.

First I would like to say that I saw a card by Debby Hughes from Limedoodle Designs awhile back where she did watercolouring of balloons. Debby paints beautifully, and I aspire to be as good as she is one of these days! Then, a few days ago I was watching kids having a birthday party down on the swimming deck, and they had balloons that were tied to the railings in these opaque colours. I had never seen balloons quite like this, they looked like they had a coating of glitter on them. I was inspired!

For my card I am using Arches 140lb. cold press watercolour paper, along with the stamp set, my Birch Press die, heat embossing powder, my mini Misti and a stamping block and my Nuvo Aqua Flow Pens, which as most of you know I love. It is the vibrancy of the colours that I love, which you can see in this card.

I started with the balloon attached to my block, stamping the balloon without the string eleven (11) times around my card, then heat embossing with the Nuvo Embossing Powder. The balloon has a light source in it, which I dusted off before heat embossing. 

I then began to paint with the Nuvo pens using a total of four (4) colours from the two sets, being Lemon Zest and Apple Red from the Summer Holiday set along with Mango Mimosa and Flamingo Pink from the Surprise Party Collection. I used a fair amount of water on my #8 brush to get the flow going when dropping in the colours. I let it dry and did a second round, to get even more colour, then dried with my heat gun.

I die cut the piece using the Birch Press die, then proceeded to paint the background using the left-over paint on my work surface. I made a puddle with all the colours, then made two other puddles, one with distress ink in Fossilized Amber, and the other in Worn Lipstick, and proceeded to watercolour my background. The very bottom of the panel is a pale pink done by using the saturated colour from my water glass. I ran a damp brush along the bottom of the painting portion, then added the lighter colour.

The pièce de ré·sis·tance is the Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer. I used this to completely cover all the balloons, it is awesome! I then used a water based black marker to stamp the strings to the balloons, colouring the stamp with the marker and lining the string up to each of the balloons, and stamping.

To finish up I splattered the card with the Fossilized Amber and Worn Lipstick, then with water. I attached the panel to a beautiful yellow card base, then took care of the glam, adding a bunch of sequins, jewel drops and crystals to the card. I then stamped the sentiment and heat embossed on black cardstock and using foam squares to attach it to my card.

I do hope you enjoy this card as much as I enjoyed making it. Following are affiliate links to the products I used. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks so much for visiting.