Does watercolor intimidate you? It always used to intimidate me. But then I read a book by Dave Brethauer called Card Design: Rubberstamping with Colored Pencils and Watercolors. One of the best books out there for inspiring confidence in your skills as a crafter.

One of the most important things I learned from the book? With water color, you’re not applying color to the page directly. You’re using water to move it around. Realizing that watercolor application is fluid just flipped the switch and helped me relax and just go with the flow as far as water colors were concerned.

This started with the Shimmering Pearls paints I used earlier this week, but then I realized I only had one blue, and no green. So I pulled out the Crayola watercolor palette I rescued from my kids, and started adding color and water to the sky and grass and stems. A simple nature themed stamp, and the card was done.

Do you have any techniques that you really want to try, but are afraid to? Are you worried you’ll ruin a scrapbook page by experimenting? That’s a huge reason to make cards. Cards are smaller, more manageable canvases, that allow you to practice techniques without worrying that you’ll ruin something. Next time you think to yourself that you want to try a new technique, practice on a card. Then you’ll feel a lot more confident when you use that technique on a page.

One of the things that was really popular when I first started stamping was creating landscapes and scenes that involved lots of masking and detail coloring. I tried a bit of that then, but I much preferred the silly scenes to the more realistic ones.

The thing I prefer about this style of stamping is that I don’t have to mask. The stamps I used were small and clear, so I could see where I was stamping, and could leave spaces or work around the images I wanted to be most obvious. A little copic coloring, and the card is done.

Remember when you’re working with nature scenes, trees and grass and shrubs are shades of green. Vary and mix the colors you use on something like this, so you get a more attractive and interesting image. Wouldn’t this be lovely with lots of reds, yellows, and oranges to make a fall tree? Add a few loose leaves floating around, and you’d be set!

Don’t forget, if you want to get a card from me you need to sign up for my email list, and send me your snail mail address!