Retirement Card Using Watercolor and Copics

Hello,  hello! If you frequently follow my blog, you may remember me talking about my friends Nick and Angie at some point.  I love hearing from Nick because not only his he a great conversationalist, but he usually has a fun challenge for me.  He's the one that always says "Hey, I need a card for xyz. Can you do it?" 

Duh. Yes. Yes, I can.

For this card, Nick's childhood dentist was retiring. He also happened to be Nick's kid's dentist, so of course he thought fondly of the man.  He wanted a special card to send to him and the inside had to be roomy enough for a lengthy, yet beautiful, message. This fit the bill:

I love this little guy, especially on retirement cards. He's just adorable and the sentiment is so appropriate!   In the beginning, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to make it a larger card. I didn't want too much going on in the background since I loved the image so much, so I decided to cut a huge piece of watercolor paper and try a watercolor background, and would worry about the size later.

I smooshed Broken China and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink on my craft sheet, then sprayed really liberally with water. It was a giant puddle at this point and the colors started to mix together. I put the watercolor paper in the ink and moved it around to make sure it had good coverage.  If I missed any spots, I just dabbed the white spots in more ink.  I let this piece dry for a while and started working on the little boy.

He's stamped on Nina Solar White cardstock and I matched the colors of his clothes to the colors in the background.  After it was all colored, I cut it out with a die and sat it aside.

For the card base, I folded an 8 12" x 11" piece of cardstock in half, then made sure that the edge of the die was just a little bit HIGHER than the fold of the paper so that it kept that shape when it was folded.  I then used the same die to cut out the watercolor paper and adhered it to the base.  It's always a good idea to move the die around or put the layers in place before you die cut it because the look with watercolor can vary so much. Since the die was higher than the card base, some of it was cut off, but that's OK because it's completely covered by the piece of watercolor paper and you'd never know unless you looked at the back.

Next I added the little boy to the watercolor and ta-da! Job well done! Nick was thrilled and since it was larger than an A2 card, he had plenty of room to write his message. 

Here is a list of my supplies:

Copic Markers (Hair: E50, 53, 55; Skin: E 000, 00, 02, R20; Pants: B 93,95,97; Shirt: Y 2,6,8; Car: YG 03, 05; Keys: YR18; Shoes: N 0, 2)

Distress Ink (Broken China and Squeezed Lemonade)

Nina Solar White Cardstock

Strathmore Watercolor Paper

Daddy's Shoes by Stamping Bella

Spellbinders Nestabilities Mega Die Set Labels 8

Thanks so much for stopping by! See you next week!