We will be using Twinkling H2O’s, which is a watercolour paint that has some sparkle in it. Due to the fact that Twinks have been discontinued, I will not list the colours used other than to say blue, brown etc. However, Cherish does also carry a line of Sparkly watercolours by Art Quest, that work in the same way, if you are interested in getting into this awesome art form. We will also be using a Koi water brush that has the water inside the body of the brush, but a regular paint brush and a cup of water will work just as well.
The first thing that you’re going to do is to stamp an image with enough empty space to color. We’ve used our very cute Pink Cat Studio stamp of a lovely bird out on a shopping spree. Be sure that you used Staz On ink so that your image stays crisp. Staz On ink do not run when coloring with water paint. The other important thing to use is watercolor paper. We have some available at the store in the perfect size of 4″ x 6″. It’s the perfect size for the card maker in all of us as well as for an image that you’d adhere to a layout if desired.
Step 1 – Swish your brush around inside the pot to pick up some of the light blue colour and colour in the body of the bird, the hat band, and the back of the bird’s head that is peaking out from under the hat.
Step 2- Clean off your brush by wiping it on scrap paper until the water is colourless and swish the brush in your brown paint to colour her shopping bags and her beak. I did a second layer on some of the stripes to create a two tone effect.
– Clean off your brush again and paint her knees, hat and scarf in Orange.
Step 3 – drop a little puddle of water into the blue H2O container and let it sit for a minute or so. This will allow the colour to become thicker, giving you are more vibrant tone and twinkle.
Now you can paint the wing and the tail with the thickened Blue H2O as shown in the image to the right.
Step 4 - punch a hole in her hat with your 1/16th punch and attach a small flower with a brad.
Step 5 – We believe that a project just isn’t finished unless it has perfect borders. Here we’ve inked all our edges in brown ink .
That’s it. Put all your nicely inked pieces together and voila! A beautifully colored (by you ), handmade card for that special person. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and come back to see more.
Here we’ve inked the edges of the cardstock with the “direct to paper” technique. It’s just a matter of using the inkpad directly to the paper instead of a dauber or sponge. Adhere all your pieces to your cardstock and add your buttons to accent. 
