How to Create Watercolor-Painted Festive Foliage Cards for the Holidays

Hello Altenew friends, Norine back with you today with some last-minute holiday cards to share! The New Year is right around the corner, followed fast by Valentine's Day, but today we still have some Christmas Holiday card stragglers.  (You can tuck these ideas away for next year if you're to that point now.)I used the Festive Foliage Stamp Set for these two cards, combined with the Altenew Watercolor paint pans. In each case, I stamped the full foliage tree image onto watercolor paper, using a stamping tool to ensure a solidly stamped image on the textured paper, then heat embossed with white embossing powder.

For both cards, I painted over the tree shape with a non-typical-Christmas-combo of lime-green and teal blue mixed paint shades, alternating stripes of each color.  I painted the lime green stripes first, then added alternating stripes in the blue-green color while the green was still wet, to allow for maximum color blending.

At this point, the two card techniques diverged. For the card above, I left the panel with the stamped, heat embossed and painted tree centered mid-panel, and used the coordinating heart die to die cut a heart from the center of the tree where the heart opening in the stamped image is.  I also flicked some paint splatters all over the card panel in the same paint shades as those I'd used for the stripes.

I stamped the combination of “from our” and “hearts” sentiment stamps onto some coordinating colored cardstock, positioned perfectly to show through the heart die-cut opening (“to yours” is stamped on the inside of both cards).  I heat embossed with white embossing powder to match the look of the tree.  I adhered the blue/green cardstock to a card base, then covered the back of the watercolor paper card panel with foam adhesive and popped it up over the card front to allow a matted edge reveal as well as the stamped sentiment opening.

For the second card, I die cut the stamped, heat embossed and watercolor-painted tree with the coordinating tree die, then sliced up the whole tree into strips 3/8ths to 1/2 inch wide.  I stamped the same sentiment stamps combination as I used on the previous card, onto a watercolor paper scrap and this time heat embossed with Platinum Embossing Powder before die cutting the heart with the coordinating die.  I used a foam blending brush to rub the ink in similar shades onto the edges of the heart, then popped up the heart with a layer of foam adhesive behind.

I dry embossed an A2 sized card panel of watercolor paper (for a perfect paper color match) with an embossing folder that was very similar in design to the foliage image of the tree stamp itself.  I adhered the embossed card panel to a card base trimmed slightly narrower on all four sides, then adhered the strips of the sliced up tree in an overlapping and wonky fashion.  I used strong liquid adhesive to make sure the bond to the highly textured cardstock would be strong and permanent.  Finally, I completed both cards with a few matching matte enamel dots from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by to check out today's project and post!  I wish each of you the very best Holiday Season, filled with the things that make your heart happiest!

~SUPPLY LIST~

Festive Foliage Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Festive Foliage Die Set [ ALTN ] Festive Foliage Stamp & Die Bundle [ ALTN ] Watercolor 36 Pan Set — Altenew [ ALTN ] Pure White Crisp Embossing Powder [ ALTN ] Embossing Ink [ ALTN ] Watercolor Brush – Medium [ ALTN ] Watercolor Brush – Large [ ALTN ]