What better way to start bringing more crafty projects to the blog than with a blog hop?!  I’m happy to be participating in the Fun n’ Crafty Stampers blog hop this month focusing on sharing Mother’s Day Cards and other project ideas for you.  If you’ve been hopping along, you would have come here by way of Stacey’s blog, and I’m excited to share my project with you!

Mother’s Day Card with the Oh So Succulent stamp set

The Oh So Succulent stamp set is one that I didn’t give much thought to at first, but it turns out to be a really cute set full of lots of versatility.  Plus, it has some sweet sentiments including a Happy Mother’s Day so it made it easy for me to start pulling together a sweet card.  Now I’m sad it is retiring (I swore it would have made the carryover list!) but at least if you haven’t gotten it yet, it is on sale for 40% off!

Now, with the Oh So Succulent stamp set, you have the option of stamping the solid color “inside” of the image, the outline “outside” of the image, or combining them together for a layered effect.  Well, for this card, I stuck to the outlines and did all my own coloring using the fun Watercolor Pencils!

Did you know, you can layer colors with the Watercolor Pencils?

I started by coloring in the large succulent image with my Daffodil Delight pencil and smoothing it out with the Aqua Painter.  Then I went back through and added Pumpkin Pie pencil to the “inside” of each leaf (so where it would have been attaching to the center of the plant) and smoothed over it with the Aqua Painter.  Finally I used the Real Red pencil to color the tips and blended it back in.  In some cases, I went over the tips again with the Real Red pencil and DID NOT smooth it out because I wanted it to be bold.

But what about those green succulents peeking out from behind the retiring Pop of Pink designer paper?  Here is where I started playing around with things.  I actually stamped with Old Olive ink and then colored in the image with the Old Olive Watercolor Pencil!  Then smoothed it out with the Aqua Painter!

Sure, Old Olive ink isn’t one of the “official” watercoloring inks, but if the green from the outline bled a little into where I had colored with the Old Olive watercolor pencil, it didn’t matter because they were the same base color!  Yay!

As for the decorative accents, I just used the Layering Circles framelits to cut out the large circle plus the scalloped Real Red circle.  Then I layered them onto the retiring Tea Lace doilies before popping them up with a dimensional over the Pop of Pink paper and Real Red glimmer paper.

Want to make this card at home? Here are the project supplies: 

 More great ideas for Mother’s Day with the Fun n’ Crafty Blog hop!

Ok, ready for more great ideas?  Head on over to Christine’s blog to check out her ideas for you!  This is a blog hop my team of demonstrator puts together and I always love seeing what they came up with!

1. Christine Szekeres – Artful Musings
2. Pamela Wu – Stinky Tofu
3. Kathy Thisted – Stampablog
4. Susan Schultz – Stampin’ by the SF Bay
5. Stacey Lane – A Work of Carte
6. Jennifer Blomquist – NW Stamper <– YOU ARE HERE