Metallic Watercolour Splatter and Die Cut Focal Points

October 09, 2021

Metallic Watercolour Splatter and Die Cut Focal Points | Christmas Cards

Hello Friends!

I have some more Christmas cards to share with you because, believe it or not, Christmas is only 11 weeks away! I'm showcasing my Arteza Metallic Watercolours using a splatter technique. Along with some foiling and die-cutting, the results are some non-traditional classic Christmas cards!

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For more details, I encourage you to watch my YouTube video linked above, as I know it is sometimes hard to explain things without seeing it😊. So I took out my Arteza Metallic 24 Pan Watercolour Paints and it comes with a black and white cardstock colour swatch sheet. I made my swatch palette and then used that to choose the colours I liked the most. I do have to note that these paints look stunning on black or dark coloured cardstocks, but I will be showing you how they look on both so you can get a feel for how they look.

I cut out 4- 5" x 7" panels or cardstock (2 in Navy Blue and 2 in white). Then I used my water brush and the chosen colours to create a splatter design on my cardstocks. I simply tapped my water brush for larger droplets in the areas that I wanted them. And I used an acrylic block with my water brush to create more of a fine splatter. Using both of these methods creates a variation of droplets, which is the look I was going for. The colour combinations I used were as follows:

1) White Cardstock - Iridescent Pink, Diamond White, Glowing Peach and Ballerina Pink

2) White cardstock - Frosty Blue, Iridescent Green & Silver

3) Navy Blue Cardstock - Iridescent Green, Balerina Pink, Diamond White & Frosty Blue

4) Navy Blue Cardstock - Silver, Diamond White, Bronze & Gold watercolours

Panel 1 & 2 (the white cardstock backgrounds)

While these panels were drying, I started my glimmer foiling and die cutting. I chose to use Spellbinders Glimmer Poinsettia to cut out some poinsettias. I cut and embossed from Sizzix Rose Gold Cardstock, 3 sizes of poinsettias. I chose used the glimmer plate to dry emboss the details on these flowers, which turned out nicely. I also used this set to foil, in Spellbinders skybright foil, some poinsettias on light blue cardstock. These would be the focal points of the two white cardstock panels.

I also cut out some mistletoe pieces from Sizzix Ivory Glitter cardstock and rose gold glitter cardstock from a Die Cuts With A View cardstock stack that I have. I used some dies from the Spellbinders Ornament set to cut out some pine branches and leaves for the poinsettias. I also used the Spellbinders Slimline Kaleidoscope Hearts to cut out some silver glitter fronds for the card with the blue poinsettia. I used the Spellbinders Elegant Holiday Glimmer Sentiments set to foil all of my sentiments in various coordinating colours of foils. I used Spellbinders Rose Gold and Skybright Foil for the white background panels. And for the blue poinsettia card, I used a sub-sentiment from the same set. The two white panels were assemble in the same manner. The sentiments were cut into larger sentiment strips to be like a band across the splatter background. They were bordered on the top and bottom with silver and white glitter strips of Sizzix Opulent cardstock. Then they were added to the panel with foam squares. I added the corresponding poinsettia to the left of the sentiment with BearlyArt Glue and adhered the various branch and leaf die cuts around the poinsettias.

Panel 3

I used the PinkFresh Studio Diagonal Stitched Plaid Die to add some texture to my panel. This die cuts out an A2 panel and mine is A7, so I had to line this up with two edges (a corner) and partial die cut this panel. Then I had to turn the panel around to partially die cut the other side and complete the pattern along the entire background. It takes a bit of ingenuity but it is possible!

For this card I glimmered the ornament and Merry Christmas sentiment from the Spellbinders Ornament set. I used Skybright foil on light blue cardstock for the ornament and silver foil on white cardstock for the sentiment, which was adhered to the ornament with foam squares. I had to cut out the ornament since there isn't a die for this in the set which is pretty simple to do. Then I adhered this to the panel in the bottom left. I used the Spellbinders Christmas Organic Foliage set to foil some small poinsettias in rose gold foil and foliage in silver foil, then I die cut all of these pieces. I arranged them around the ornament and added some silver twine to the ornament to simulate it hanging.

Panel 4

For this panel I used the tree from the Spellbinders Frankie Goes to The North Pole Dies - SDOM Nov 2020 set. I cut this 4 times out of silver and rose gold cardstock. I attached one tree to the bottom of the first to create a taller tree. Then I cut apart the branches from the other 2 die cut trees to used while assembling my card, which I'll get to in a minute. Much like the first 2 cards, I foiled a sentiment and attached it across my panel. I also adhered a sub-sentiment with some small foam squares. For a bit of a change, I kept my sentiment to the left of this card, while the others were to the right. I then adhered the tall tree be created earlier. I used those cut up branches to fill in this tree and only glued them down at one end so the leafy end would stick up a bit creating some dimension. After crossing and adhering all of these branches, I had created a taller dimensional Christmas Tree.

To finish of the front of all these panels, I added some LolliBead gems in clear, rose gold, gold, crystal AB and silver. I also some sky blue PinkFresh Studio jewels to the blue poinsettia card.

Card Insides

For the card insides, I used an array of Altenew products to create a subtle image that matches the front on all of these cards. I did so as follows:

Panel 1) I used the Altenew Build-A-Flower: Poinsettia stamp set and stamped out the first and second layers in Altenew's Morning Frost and Blush inks, respectively. I did this 3 times in opposite corners of the card

Panel 2) Like Panel 1, I stamped out the poinsettias in Altenew's Morning Frost and Polar Bear inks.

Panel 3) I used the Altenew Brilliant Baubles set (this seems to be discontinued so I've linked something similar) to stamp out 3 ornaments in Altenew Morning Frost, Polar Bear, Icy Blue and Encore Ultimate silver inks. Then I used Brilliance Pearlescent Blue Ink for the bows and I used Pigma Micron Black archival ink pens to draw on the strings. which gave these ornaments a 3D effect.

Panel 4) I used the Altenew Sketched Evergreen set to stamp out the tree in Altenew's Morning Frost and Evening Gray inks. I stamped out the base with Encore Ultimate silver ink.

For the sentiments, I used the Altenew Blessings Stamp Set and stamped all four cards in VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink . I then cut apart a stamp from the Altenew Build-A-Flower: Poinsettia stamp set. I separated the "we wish you a" from the scripty "Merry Christmas" so I didn't have to do any masking while stamping. You can do this anytime with your sets and just place the back together on your acrylic blocks when you want to use the whole sentiment in the future. I stamped out the Merry Christmas below the main sentiment in matching inks (colours I've already used).

Then I assembled all of these cards with some strong double-sided tape and they were complete!

These took some time but they were well worth it! That ink splatter looks great and gives your projects a nice artistic effect! I hope you have been inspired and go ahead and leave me a comment as I love hearing from you!