Okay, I’ll admit it: I have a new obsession. I have fallen completely head over heels for Derwent’s Inktense pencils. They’re a water soluble paint type pencil set that make watercoloring my new favorite thing. I don’t own any standard watercolors and I only have one other set of watercolor pencils. There’s a reason for this–I can’t draw. The fancy coloring and shading that some crafters pull off with Copic markers baffles me. This is a talent I simply don’t possess (and I’m a little jealous). I would normally shy away from anything that would expose this weakness, but once I watched a few YouTube videos on them, I was so taken by their bold hues that I just had to try them for myself.

Now I’ve told you that I don’t draw and if you’re like me, you’ll depend on your stamps and stencils to outline your images. When I’m working with any watercolor technique, I use Staz On ink or any other brand that won’t run when I start working with water. I chose a recently acquired Heartfelt Creations stamp set for my image on this card and then selected what I thought might be an appropriately vivid color for my flower.

Boy was it ever. After taping my cardstock to my craft sheet with washi tape, I used my Inktense pencil to color in my flower where I wanted the shades to be darkest. I thought the bases and tips of the petals might look nice and left the petals plain white in the middle. Here comes the magic. With a detail waterbrush, I blended the color from base to tip on each petal for my highlights. No seriously–that’s it. I was thrilled with how easily the pencil blended using water alone. It blended with so few strokes and so little water that I didn’t have to use watercolor paper.

While my flower dried, I stamped the image a second time on some masking tape and cut the image out to use as a mask. I placed it over my colored image (once dry) and stamped the flourishes and leaves with Staz On Jet Black ink. I left the mask in place and used Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to color in my background. After coloring in my leaves, I thought the card front could benefit from a border to balance out the color. I took the same colored pencil from the flower to the border of a piece of cardstock and blended them with my waterbrush so that intensity would match.

The addition of a Heartfelt Creations sentiment and a little sparkle on the petal tips with my Wink of Stella glitter pen finished a card to send to someone on your mind.

If you’re interested in any of the products I used, I’ve listed them here:

• Derwent Intense Pencils
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Tumbled Glass
• Heartfelt Creations – Dhalia
• Heartfelt Creations – Sentiment
• Wink of Stella Glitter Pen – Clear Glitter

If you think this handmade card is perfect for someone you know, you can find it here.

If you’d like to see any of my other products or you’d like to request a custom order, please send me a message or visit Aluminum Butterfly on Etsy.