Distress Marker Fun

Good morning folks.
I hope you are well. Well, after a brief lull in the busyness of life recently, I have actually managed to be a little creative over the last few days. I can feel my creative mojo is returning. As my visitors return today I will be off radar again for a while but hopefully I will have some time to pop in here and share some bits and pieces with you.
One of the things I have begun to "challenge" myself to do is begin to use things that have been hanging around the studio and been forgotten....it's surprising what you find when doing a tidy LOL.

One of the things I discovered was a pack of 20 3x3 card blanks and instead of packing them away again I decided to use them to make these....

20 delightful little cards, perfect for little thank yous. I even took photos along the way so if you want to make your own you can. Shall we begin?
I've used Distress Markers, watercolour card, my bird stamps from The Artistic Stamper, Archival ink and liquid pearls.

 Cut watercolour card into a size smaller than your chosen card blank and stamp assorted birds in black Archival ink.

 Take a selection of Distress Markers and begin to colour the image. The key when using the markers is to leave white areas. If you don't you have nowhere to "move" the colour to.

 Take a fillable waterbrush (If you don't have one then a brush and bowl of water is fine too. Begin to work over the colour, you will see it moves and blends beautifully. Work over the whole image including the white areas.

 When finished you have a beautifully blended watercolour finish.

 Add colour to the beak and legs (and other areas if desired)

 Use the waterbrush to blend these in too.

 Repeat for the other 19 images lol! Vary the colours as you go to end up with this little pile. Now they need backgrounds.....

 All the images have a similar colour palette, I've used browns, oranges and yellows primarily, though some of the browns have a green undertone. So, colour as you can see here. Again, remember to leave white areas and also, try to avoid straight lines.

 Blend with a waterbrush to create this lovely soft mottled finish. Repeat with the rest of them.

 Distress the edges with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink and mount them onto the card blanks with double sided tape.

 Add details with Liquid Pearls.

 To add interest, I stamped the backs of the envelopes with Archival ink and my small background border stamps.

Now I have 4 great little sets of cards, all packaged nicely in sets of 5 ready to give as a gift or to use. I must say that I love my Distress Markers, I think they are great to work with especially if, like me, you love the water colour painting effect they give.
Hope you enjoyed this and now I'd better get myself organised ....
Take care.