It’s Shirley Bee’s Birthday and I was invited to join in and share her special day with a Linky party hosted by Maria F.  Thank you Maria for organizing this and asking me to join in her Celebration!  I am not only a fan of Shirley’s work, but I also have the pleasure of working alongside her on the Seize the Birthday Design Team.  I have been trying my hand at watercoloring techniques more and more these days (as Shirley so creatively does, and makes it look so easy), so here is another one in honor of her Birthday!  Happy Birthday Shirley and thanks for inspiring all of us along this creative journey! 

I started off with a piece of watercolor paper and stamps from SU Stippled Blossoms. I stamped the leaves and the flowers using the spritzing technique.  Things were moving along swimmingly, until I was about to stamp my last set of leaves and accidentally put the leaves in the Melon Mambo ink instead of the Lucky Limeade $#$%%*.  My sentiments exactly!! It’s the pair of leaves on the very top of the card.  Luckily, I liked the look of it and decided to add some more pinkish- red leaves.  Love when things work out like that! I came back with my watercolored brush and added some very light Melon Mambo inside the green leaves. I decided my flowers and leaves needed a little fine tuning so I took some colored pencils and added some definition.   You might not even be able to tell where in the photo.  Then I thought the inside of the flowers were lost as you can see in the photo below.

So I punched out some circles and stamped them with the same flower and adhered them to the card with a tiny cream center. I speckled the card with some more Melon Mambo and added the Vellum heat embossed Hero Arts Sentiment.  All card stock is Stampin Up along with the candy dots.

I am also linking this card to the Mod Squad challenge where my friend Judy is hosting.  She asked us to create your most very favorite kind of card.  Well, this card covers Two of my favorite things.  I absolutely love making tall and skinny cards!  Honestly, they have always been my favorite.  Also, I am so enjoying watercoloring at this point in my creative life.  It’s so free and unplanned as you might have realized if you read my steps above.  LOL   Thanks Judy for letting us do what we love with no limitations! 

Thanks for stopping by today…I so appreciate it and please come on over to Maria’s Blog and see the various Birthday cards we have linked up for Shirley’s party!

Take care,  Nanc’