Get some great tricks and tips for adding color to your handmade cards!

Today Colleen has created a fun, tip loaded video for us showing three ways to color handmade cards using alcohol markers and our own Color Fuse dye inks. Colleen says she’s really itching for spring and that inspired her to create this beautiful, colorful card.

You can watch the video here and then scroll down for the step by step instructions.

Doesn’t Colleen make it all look so easy? And we know from personal experience that the more you practice, the better you get! Let’s run through Colleen’s steps to creating this fabulous spring themed card!

First, she stamped three of the flowers from our Always on My Mind set onto white card stock using Versamark and heat embossed them with gold powder. She then colored the flowers in with a variety of shades of pink and yellow alcohol markers using her great tips from her video. She then cut them out with our coordinating die.

Now Colleen used our Tall Terracotta Pot Die set and our Leaves and Greenery die to cut shapes from white card stock, setting aside any pieces she wasn’t using for future projects.

For her leaves and greenery, Colleen used a blending brush to apply layers of Color Fuse Inks in Melon, Grass and Juniper from Set #11 starting with the lighter shade all over and gradually going darker toward the base of the shapes. She then used this same layered application with her plant pot using Color Fuse inks in Mocha, Caramel, and Cinnamon from Set #3. For a realistic look, start with the lightest shade in the center and move out toward the edges with the darkest (use the photo on the die as an example).

For her third easy way to color your handmade cards, Colleen used the direct-to-paper method and ink blended two card panel sized pieces of white card stock using Sierra Color Fuse Ink from Set #8 and Bubblegum from Set #5. When they were completely dry, Colleen cut these panels plus white and silver card stock with our Rectangle Combo OPC #3 die.

Now for assembly! (And if you make extra flowers, greenery and pots you can make multiples of this card with different layered frames!) Colleen adhered alternating colored layers cut with the frame die to her white card base(s). If you don’t make multiple cards, tuck those extra die cuts into your die storage for super fast access.

Colleen added her terracotta pot with a piece of dimensional adhesive in the center to make it easier to adhere her flowers and foliage with the ends tucked under the top edge of the pot. She then added some of her greenery flowing down from the pot for some additional color and dimension.

As her final touches on the front of this card, Colleen covered up the word “again” with some tape on the Happy Birthday stamp in our Always on My Mind set, inked it up, peeled off the tape and stamped her greeting on one of the frames below the pot. And then added some pretty pearls to the centers of her flowers for just a touch of glam.

Now, Colleen wanted to dress up the inside of her card too – if you haven’t watched the video, you MUST see how pretty this turns out! She arranged the three flowers WITHOUT stems together on her block and stamped them using Sierra Color Fuse Ink in the center of the inside of the card. Then she inked up her choice of sentiment from the same set and stamped it directly OVER – not above – the flowers.

Here are all the fun things Colleen used today:

 

And you are going to want to make sure any order you place between now and February 20th totals $29 or more because when you do, this little cutie is going to be added to your shipment for free!

Let’s get one more peep at this card!

We love learning new ways to color handmade cards and here Colleen has both made it look really easy AND shown us how to MAKE it really easy! Are you excited to make some cards?