Virginia's View Challenge #1

My friend Virginia has started a monthly challenge which she calls Virginia's View.  Here is our photo inspiration for this first one:

I have always loved watercolor art, and so I decided to jump in with both feet.  I made 3 cards today, all using distress inks as my watercolors and watercolor paper as my base.

For this first one I started with a Technique Tuesday stamp set, Two Steppin',  which has a 2-step flower.  I stamped the outline of the flowers and leaves using Ranger Archival ink in Jet Black, then added the 2nd step using distress inks that had been spritzed before stamping.  To finish, I made pools of the same colors, dipped in a paint brush and flicked on some droplets in my background.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts Dauber Bunch.  I added pearls to the centers of the flowers and mounted my dried panel onto a new Doll Pink cardstock from Simon - it is an exact match to picked raspberry distress ink, which I used for my center flower!

I'd like to enter this first card into Card Concept's Floral Theme challenge.  The style would be Clean and Simple.

On my second card, I used finger daubers to apply various distress inks using this Mini Flower Frenzy stencil and also used some distress markers to add a few highlights here and there.  Then I removed the stencil and really spritzed lots of water onto the panel.  That caused the colors to soften and run together and blend - I love the effect!  After a thorough drying and straightening under a pile of books, I then embossed my panel with Cuttlebug's Juli's Garden embossing folder.  My sentiment comes from The Craft's Meow Potted Garden set, now discontinued. (so sad, I love the beautiful font that Clare Buswell gave us).  And I added some clear sequins here and there to give a bit of sparkle.

ETA:  I'd like to enter this 2nd card into Moxie Fab World's Styling with Stencils challenge.

And for my final card, I simply stamped this Stampendous Cling Seed Catalog onto watercolor paper, then smooshed various distress inks onto an acrylic block, misted them with water, and used a paint brush to color in the main image before washing the background in broken china distress ink.  I used my fingernail to rough up the edges of the panel before attaching it to my card base.

Thank you, Virginia, for a great afternoon of play!  There are so many other ways to get the watercolor look - I just might be back again soon with a couple more entries!