Flowerful Friday: Anniversary Card and a Note About Printing on Watercolor Paper

Hello and welcome back!  Today I have the first of four anniversary cards I'm making for my friend's offspring.  I do this every year and it's a challenge to come up with different ideas, but something new came along just in time.

This digital stamp was designed by Julie Koerber and recently added to Power Poppy's Graceful Still Life set.  Julie used Marcella's dogwood branches and made her own clever composite.  She shared the "how to" here.  If you have Photoshop Elements it's not difficult at all and it's fun to play around when you have the time.  Julie writes a good tutorial.  If you already have the Graceful Still Life set you should have access to this image as an additional download.

The image prints in nice, crisp lines with a border around the perimeter.  However, my finicky printer and I had a misunderstanding and it turned out almost no line, with no border.  I had it on the wrong paper setting and was running out of cyan ink.  With my printer it's always an adventure.  I almost discarded the printed image, but decided to have a go at it.  I'm undecided as to how I feel about the results.

I printed on Arches 140 lb hot pressed watercolor paper and watercolored with Tombow markers.  Card size is 4 1/2 x 6 1/4.

Pictured below is my young dogwood tree which was my color inspiration.  This tree, sigh... every year I keep hoping for more.  It's not nearly as pretty as it was in the nursery.  Smaller blooms, sparse, not as pretty a pink.  I brightened everything up in the painted version because, you know, you can do whatever you want on paper.

A note about printing on watercolor paper:  I despaired of ever being able to watercolor a digital image until I learned a trick from my friend, Cheryl Scrivens.  The problem many of us have is that our printers won't take the heavier paper.

• First, I should mention that hot pressed is finer grain and lighter weight than cold pressed paper, so start with that.
• Tape a band of regular paper of a weight your printer can handle to the end of your watercolor paper.  I find that even 1/4" is adequate.  The plain paper will be your lead end.
• Make sure to include that 1/4" of plain paper in the overall size for the setting you're using.  The finished size should be 5 x 7, for instance -- not 5 x 7 1/4.
• You'll determine which setting to use on your printer in regard to paper type.  Oddly, my printer always works best on the semi-gloss photo paper setting.  I would think "matte", but no.  I have an Epson XP-310, discontinued.  The ink is waterproof, but also works perfectly for Copic coloring.  If and when I buy a new printer I'll make sure it uses the same kind of ink.

By the way, the lattice background is Spellbinders Basic Lattice, an oldie-but-goodie classic.

I'll take my leave now and wish you a happy day!