Hi, crafty friends! We’re halfway through spring, and I’m still really looking forward to summer, as evidenced by my card today. Spring is nice, but summer’s the best, and these images really capture that summer feeling!

I created a scene with quite a few images from the Lakewood collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Holly Mabutas. Oliver reading to swim, Sleepy Sampson, Ollie swims, Bruno Jumps In, Boat house and Pier are all used in this one scene. It’s still not a very busy card, and I got away with only masking the guys on the pier.

I don’t use watercolor a lot, but a palette with watercolor paint is a lot more travel friendly than 360 Copic markers, and I was on vacation in the mountains when I painted this last summer. Only having access to watercolor forces me to play with them and familiarize myself with them, which is a good thing.

The images are all stamped using Obsidian ink from Altenew, which is a pigment ink that works well with watercolor. The paper is Fabriano Artístico cold pressed watercolor paper. I used my Mijello Mission Gold watercolor paints and brushes of varying sizes. I’m not an expert watercolorist, so the coloring’s pretty basic.

I trimmed my panel, stamped a sentiment from the Summer Days Sentiment set using Winter Lake ink from Altenew, matted the panel with a piece of Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink, then adhered that to a square card base (5 5/8″ x 5 5/8″) that I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink.