Cardmaking, EBE by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen

Clean & Simple Modern Succulent Cards

Do you love clean and simple card designs? How about plants & succulents? Don’t they sound like a good combo?

Our wonderful EH Design Ambassador Carolyn Peeler is here today sharing her beautiful clean & simple cards featuring the Essentials by Ellen Modern Succulents!

Hello crafty friends, Carolyn Peeler with you today. Like many of you I have been finding a lot of joy and contentment through creativity during these stressful days.

My creative output has mainly been focused on encouraging cards that I can send to friends to spread cheer and today I wanted to share two of my most recent creations with you.

These two CAS cards feature the Modern Succulents stamp set. What I particularly love about these cards is that the technique and process is super easy, allowing for very easy assembly style making where you can crank out several of these in quick succession.

Here is the walk through for the “Take Good Care” card:

Cut a piece of Grey and white patterned paper 5.5″ x 4.25″. Set aside.
Cut a piece of watercolour paper 2 7/8″ x 3 7/8″.
Colour directly onto the Aloe stamp using Distress makers in the lightest shade that you will be watercoloring with.
Depending on how quickly you colour, it is possible that the ink from the first part of the stamp that you colored may dry before you are ready to stamp. So, in order to combat that, I usually spray one pump from a spray bottle to lay a light mist of water over the image in order to reactivate the ink before stamping it onto my watercolour paper.
Next you will get your ink set up to watercolor by colouring some of it onto a Ranger Craft Sheet which I used as my painting palette. I then sprayed a few squirts of water below the ink. I mix this water with the inks in order to make my watercolors.
For the planter, you will first want to “paint” a light coat of water (no colour) onto the whole shape. While it’s still wet, start to add colour, beginning with the lightest colour and applying it only about 1/4 of the way in from each side, then layer on the darker colour, applying it only to the outer edges of the planter. You will want to leave the centre unpainted so that it gives a rounded look to the shape. However, because you laid down a thin wash of water before painting, the water will draw some of your lighter colour towards the center, which will stop a harsh line from forming where you stopped applying the colour.

For the Aloe leaves, I did two different painting techniques. for the Blue potted Aloe, I painted all the leaves at the same time. The advantage to this is that it’s quick. The disadvantage is that your watercolours will flow into each other, giving less defined individual leaves. For the Pink potted Aloe, I first painted only the leaves that did NOT touch each other. Allowed them to dry, then painted the others. This techique allows each leaf to be very defined because the paint stays where you laid it down and will not flow into another leaf. I think that each option has its place, it just depends which look you’re after – and how much time you have.

If you look at the samples carefully, you will see that the blue potted Aloe rectangle has little brown flecks on it, and the pink one does not. To do the flecking, I mixed Vintage Photo Distress ink with a lot of water, then, using an art toothbrush (a regular toothbrush that I bought for using in art) that I dipped it into the watercolor, then I scraped my fingernail down the bristles to flick little specks of the colour onto the blue rectangle. As you can see in the images the flecking makes the blue card a bit more lived in, whereas the pink card is cleaner/crisper. So, depending on which look you prefer, you can add or leave this step.
After the watercoloured Aloe image dries, mount it onto a piece of chipboard cut the same size. If you’d like, after the glue has dried, you can take sandpaper and sand around the edges of it so that hints of the chipboard are visible. Either method is fine – it just depends what look you prefer.
For the greeting, glue some white cardstock onto another piece of chipboard, then stamp the “Take good care” greeting onto it, and cut it into a strip. Once again, sand the edges or not, as you prefer. Then, glue the greeting onto the Aloe rectangle.
Glue the Aloe rectangle onto your grey card front.
Choose 3 coordinating buttons and position them as you’d like. Using a pencil, mark the wholes with little dots then remove the buttons and, using a needle, poke wholes through the paper on the dots. Next sew the buttons in place using the holes.
Finally, cut a piece of white cardstock 8.5″ x 5.5″ and fold it in half to make a card. Then, glue the card front with the Aloe and buttons onto it. (We built the card onto a card front so that the sewing for the buttons do not show on the inside of your card.)