Exquisite Splendor Inspiration | Watercolor Cards with Norine

Hello Spellbinder Friends! Norine Borys from The Velvet Lemon, back with you again today with a few more projects to share. A couple of days ago I showed you some “quilted” cards made with some of the beautiful dies in the Exquisite Splendor Collection by Marisa Job. Today’s cards use more of the Exquisite Splendor Collection and I’m excited to share them with you.

I created each of these cards with the dies from the Exquisite Splendor Collection,  either die cutting from watercolor paper, or die-impressing onto watercolor paper. I used a common color palette for each card, painting with blues and greens and varying the shades by adding some yellow to the mix here and there, then adding the dark red flowers for contrast.

For the first card, I laid the Blooming Floral Wreath die onto an A2 sized piece of watercolor paper allowing the die to hang off the edge. I used a rubber mat when I ran it through the die cutting machine so that the die wouldn’t cut through, but would leave a deep impression in the paper. Then I added color to the wreath in very wet puddles of green, blue and yellow so that the paint would pool in the cracks and dry a little darker there. Because of using plenty of water, it allowed the finished color to be fairly light and transparent. Once dry, I added paint splatters with a very wet brush and the same paint colors as I had used for painting.

I die cut the flower shapes with the same Blooming Floral Wreath Die set from water color paper as well, and the leaves with dies from the Tulip Flower Box Die set. and painted them with varying intensity of dark red watercolor paint and let them dry. Once they were dry, I colored over them with a Wink of Stella clear glitter pen, then assembled and glued them together, including the leaves. I added small clear rhinestones to the centers before adhering them to the wreath itself.

I stamped a sentiment from the Spellbinders Floral Love Clear stamps onto vellum with clear Versamark ink, then heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I wrapped the ends of the sentiment strip around the edges of the card panel and adhered them on the back.

For the next card I used the Leaf Border dies (both the inside shape and the outside border together) and cut once from watercolor paper, and two more times from heavy card stock. Again, I randomly painted the watercolor die cut with shades of blue-green and yellow-green and set it aside to dry. Once dry, I stacked the water colored die cut with the two cardstock die cuts, gluing the layers to create a thicker shape. I cut one more piece of watercolor paper using only the outer rectangle die, and glued it onto the back of the stacked Leaf Border die cut.

I cut a piece of patterned paper to 4.25” x 5.5” and adhered it to a card base. Then I glued the stacked Leaf Border Die to the patterned paper. I stamped another sentiment from the Floral Love Clear Stamps set onto vellum and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. I cut it into a fishtail banner, adhered it to the left edge of the Leaf Border die cut, and concealed the adhered edge underneath a stacked flower made with die cuts and leaves from the painted leaf and flower shapes leftover from the wreath card above. I used a small gold brad to stack and hold the three flower die cuts together.

The last card is created using the Leaf Border Frame and the Square Medallion Tiles  both from the Exquisite Splendor Collection. The frame die cut is painted as outlined for the cards above, and set aside to dry. For the medallion strip, I ran it through the die cutting machine with the rubber pad again, so that it would create an impression instead of die cutting it out. Then I painted it in softer shades of the same colors as the frame, and once dry I colored it all over with the clear Wink of Stella pen to achieve that soft pearlescent sheen.

I cut one of the squares from the strip of three tiles, and trimmed it down until it fit into the opening of the frame die cut. I popped it up with a layer of Fun Foam beneath, and adhered it to the center of the watercolor painted frame. Once more, I stamped a sentiment from the Floral Love stamp set Floral Love Clear Stamps directly onto the card base, heat embossed with platinum embossing powder, then wrapped the card front with some variegated silk ribbon and tied a bow. As tempting as it was to add embellishing in the form of enamel dots or rhinestones, I decided to keep them clean and simple and just let the gorgeous die cuts shine.

The Exquisite Splendor Collection is a beautiful assortment of etched dies, from which you can make darling basket shapes and boxed cards, beyond the simple ways I’ve used them previously and today. I’m delighted to have had the chance to create with them, and I hope you’ve seen and/or learned something that inspires you to try yourself! Thanks again to Spellbinders for the invitation to contribute to the blog today. Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by.

Spellbinders Supplies:

Other supplies:

Watercolor paper - Canson XL 140 lb, Cardstock - Neenah Classic Natural, Water color paints - Daniel Smith and Kuretake Gansai, Detail Embossing Powder - Ranger and Recollections, Adhesive - Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue, Tombow Xtreme tape runner.