Some watercolor hellos

I wanted to make another card for the AEI♥U Watercolor challenge.

This time I used their Petals & Stems stamps, and stamped on watercolor paper using worn lipstick, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, and peeled paint distress inks.  When I had just about covered most of the white space, I then spritzed the panel until the colors started to bleed together.  They also got a whole lot brighter than they originally were!  Because of that I decided on the Hello sunshine as my sentiment, using the sunshine from their Simply Said Hello set.  The hello is die-cut, and I added some sequins (Teresa Collins and Lawn Fawn) for a little dimension and sparkle.

ETA: I'd like to enter this first sunshine card into the Moxie Fab World's Hip on Handwriting challenge.

I decided to do this again, but use cool colors (peacock feathers, salty ocean, broken china, and mowed lawn distress inks) and the same supplies as above.  Look at the difference!

This version hardly ran at all when it was spritzed!  I think I used the same amount of water, but here the colors faded instead of brightened.  These are all "newer" colors of distress inks......wonder if the formula has changed from the originals?  Or did I use the "other" side of the watercolor paper this time?  I don't know enough to know the difference.  There was more white space between my stamping here, but still, the colors barely bled........if anyone has an answer, I'd love to know it!

To change it up a bit, I added a "normally" stamped flower and leaves from the same set, using the same inks, fussy-cutting it out and popping it above my watercolored panel.  I like this version, too, maybe because these are more "my" colors........

This was really lots of fun, and a great use for solid stamps!

ETA: I played some more after this post and got better results with my cool inks - see HERE.