Inlaid Watercolor.....

Sorry, I think I'm addicted! I had recently found Distress Inks for a crazy good price, so I really stocked up....I mean really, lol! Having all those colors now, it has been so much fun playing around with the trend in watercolor look on cards. This piece was about headed to the trash can, but I was persistent and ended up picking some darker shades than I started with. And suddenly, it just sort of started to come together. I pulled it out, and saved it! And it actually looks pretty good. 

The Tim Holtz watercolor paper was cut using a die from My Creative Time, found here. I had in mind for this to be a guy card, and liked this die that is sort of an argyle feel. It is from Simon Says Stamp, and found here. I got brave, and cut my watercolor piece apart!!! I then used the same die and cut it in white...same watercolor paper as it's quite thick. Then, I put the puzzle pieces back together. The Happy Birthday die is found here. Some pieces of this die are SUPER TINY, so be careful to save them...you'll want to put them back in. I had some trouble with "birthday" and couldn't get it all pulled out to inlay the white. Part of it ended up actually glued on top. But it didn't look too bad and at this point, I wasn't throwing it out!

I then had the bright idea to do the sentiment the same way. Well...I didn't think about the fact that I now had one layer of thick watercolor paper AND the backing piece it was all glue to. Needless to say...it did not cut all the way through. Once again, I feared this was head for the trash. But...I persisted and got enough pulled out to fit the tiny cuts put back in. It's not perfect, but no one will probably even notice. I then went over those white pieces with Wink of Stella glitter brush, found here. Finally, I added foam tape to the back of the card front and attached it to a 4.25 x 4.25 card base. 

Moral of the story....don't give up on something you've got a lot of time invested in, sometimes you can save it, and it ends up better than you thought! I think this will def pass for a guy card.