The other day I saw on Facebook a Stampin’ Up! post of a stamping technique that a French Demonstrator, on the Artisan Design Team, had used on a card using the acrylic blocks. I had already been reminded of an Easter card I made of an oval shape and decorated like an Easter egg, so I used her technique to make a Watercolored Easter Egg Notecard.

You can use the largest oval framelit in the Layering Ovals Framelits Dies to make this card although it is a little small. If you want a larger card you will need some kind of template. I just used a notecard in the Note Card & Envelopes since the egg will be small anyway. Fold the note card and position the largest oval die over the note card (closed) but having it off the card a bit over the fold. In other words, you do not want to cut a portion of the fold. If you do, you will have two ovals cut out of the Note Card but they won’t be connected by the fold. Just slide the oval off to the left a little bit so you will still have a fold.

You can see how I made an Easter egg-shaped card HERE a few years ago. The die will cut through the two layers of the card and still have a fold as long as you move the die to the left of the fold.

This is how I colored my egg card. I used a larger acrylic block that the egg could fit on. Then I chose several colors of ink pads and picked up ink from each color with my Aqua Painter one at a time and colored it onto the acrylic block. Instead of picking up the block and stamping it on the card, I placed the front of the egg card down onto the acrylic block loaded with stripes of colors of watery ink. Just press and then lift up carefully.

Depending on how much ink and how much water from your Aqua Painter (or brush) that you use and how you lay down the colors, you will get a different look on your card each time you make one. It’s really fun to do a technique where each time the final look will be a surprise! You could also color directly on the card, but Whisper White cardstock doesn’t hold up really well to very much water. I would recommend using Shimmery White Cardstock.

To decorate my Easter card, I used the Easter greeting from the Fable Friends Stamp Set. It is stamped in Highland Heather ink and layered on Highland Heather Cardstock, both die cut from the Layering Ovals Framelits Dies. For a little bling, I added some self-adhesive Basic Sequins.

As I was getting an envelope for the note card, I decided to color the envelope flap to match. It doesn’t match exactly because I didn’t use an acrylic block, I just colored directly onto the envelope flap. This does make the flap a little “warpy” and the glue on the flap inside gets a little damp so make sure the flap is open. And finally I stamped the bunny from the Fable Friends Stamp Set in Highland Heather on the front of the envelope.

This is a pretty small little Easter egg card but very cute and fun! You can try this technique or you can make one like the one I linked to from three years ago. Of course you can use this ink-on-the-acrylic-block technique to make lots of different kinds of cards, even just stamping the block onto cardstock and leaving a rectangular stamped shape as the Artisan team member did. Get out some ink and an acrylic block and experiment for yourself in making whatever cards you like or one for Easter like my Watercolored Easter Egg Notecard.

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