Guest Blogger: Yana Smakula

Hello, friends! This is Yana Smakula and I am excited to bring you my monthly video tutorial for Papertrey Ink from the “In The Studio with Yana” video series. I am sharing video tutorials on the 24th of each month, you can catch previous episodes here.

In this month episode I’d like to encourage you to pull out your PTI ink pads and try your hand at watercoloring easy backgrounds for Christmas cards. The cards I’m sharing today are much easier to make than they look, trust me!   

 

I started working on these by heat embossing snowflakes from the Silver White Winters stamp set in White and Gold embossing powders onto Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper. You can also try using Silver embossing powder for this card design – I bet it would look just stunning! 

Next, I picked a few colors of my PTI ink pads and water-swatched them on the same Arches Hot Pressed Paper to be able to see how how a particular color would look on my paper. I picked Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, Tropical Teal, Enchanted Evening, Dark Indigo and True Black. While I didn’t use Black on its own I mixed it with the other colors to get a darker shade. 

Be sure to watch my video tutorial above to see the watercolor process in detail as well as to learn tips and tricks. Once my coloring was done I added a generous amount of white and gold pearlescent splatter to create a “beautiful mess”. 

I trimmed my watercolor backgrounds to 4 x 5 ¼ “ and foam mounted onto an A2 side folding card bases. I also heat embossed “Season’s Greetings” in white embossing powder onto Pure Poppy cardstock and foam mounted onto the cards. 

Finally, I embellished my projects using Gold & White confetti. 

While the white snowflake card looks much better on the photographs, I personally prefer the one with gold snowflakes as they look much more festive in real life. Which card do you like best? Share below! 

Even if you don't have watercolors in your stash I'd like to encourage you to pull out your PTI inks and stamps, get some high quality watercolor paper and give this idea a try! 

Have fun stamping!  

• STAMPS: Silver White Winters
• PAPER: Pure Poppy, Stamper's Select White
• INK: Hawaiian Shores, Aqua Mist, Enchanted Evening, Tropical Teal, True Black, Dark Indigo
• OTHER: White Fun Foam, Scor-tape, MISTI, Glue, Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper, Silver Black Velvet Brush #8, Flat 1” wide brush, Confetti in Gold & White, Crystal Katana Tool, Finetec Pearlescent Watercolors