Focus Friday - with Kassi Hulet

My Sweet Petunia welcomes Kassi Hulet to our Design Team!

We are delighted to welcome Kassi Hulet to the My Sweet Petunia Design Team! Kassi began her creative journey as a teen scrapbooker, but it was after a car accident at nineteen—when crafting became both therapy and inspiration—that her love for art truly deepened. Over the years she has explored cardmaking, drawing, and mixed media, eventually discovering her greatest passion in 2019: no-line watercolor using Fadeout ink.

Kassi is known for her soft, expressive florals and her clear, encouraging teaching style. The MISTI has long been one of her essential tools—especially when stamping on textured watercolor paper—making her a perfect fit for our team.

She lives in beautiful western Washington with her dog and an ever-changing parade of backyard wildlife, and we couldn’t be more excited for you to learn from her creativity and expertise.

Please join us in giving Kassi a warm welcome!

No-Line Watercolor Florals with MISTI Lite & LDRS Creative Stamps

I love no line watercolor... especially florals, so today I’m going to walk you through how I create and paint a floral card! Don’t worry, it isn’t as hard as it may sound. I’ll keep things pretty basic but also add in some slightly more advanced tips for those of you looking to take your painting up another level.

I like to start my projects by taping some Arches Cold Press watercolor paper to the My Sweet Petunia Platform. While this particular card didn’t really need all the edges taped, it’s a habit I’ve developed whenever I’m working with watercolors to decrease warping. 

After getting my paper taped down, I get my MISTI Lite set up using a Power Mag. You can use 2 magnets if you want, but I found that on the Platform, 1 Power Mag was enough to hold it. 

Now that we have things set up, it’s time to start planning our bouquet. I find it easiest to lay the die down on the paper, and arrange the stamps inside the die so I get an idea of what shapes I have to work with and how I want them to sit inside the die. I’m using the LDRS Creative Bouquet Maker stamp set and the LDRS Creative Rounded Rectangle Frame die, however this can be done with whatever floral stamps and shaped dies you have.

Once you have your arrangement figured out, use the MISTI Lite to stamp the first flower (the one you want to be in front of everything else) using Inkon3 Fadeout ink. Using low tack tape, tape the corresponding mask over the stamped flower. (LDRS Creative has a stencil/mask set for this stamp, but if you don’t have it you can make your own masks by stamping onto some masking paper or a post it note and cutting each flower out)  

Because of the texture of watercolor paper, it is very common to need to stamp an image at least 2 times to get a good impression (this is especially true if you like to keep your ink pad a little on the dryer side like I do so the ink is lighter). This is why using the MISTI or MISTI Lite is so helpful. I would never be able to stamp an image multiple times perfectly in the same spot using just an acrylic block!

Continue stamping and masking the flowers and leaves- working front to back- until you’ve created your custom bouquet. Like I said earlier, I like my lines pretty light, so I keep my Fadeout ink pad a bit on the dry side. If you want or need darker lines, use a juicier pad or just stamp each image a few extra times to build up the ink. 

At this point I like to heat set the ink, but you don’t have to. If you don’t want to heat set it, give it a minute or two  to fully dry. If you do use a heat tool while your paper is still taped to the Platform, please be careful. The Platform is metal and can get hot. 

Now comes my favorite part… painting! Start by adding some dark paint in the color of your choice to the base of the first petal, and to any shadow areas (like where one petal lays over another, or a petal curls).

Apply some clean water to the outer edge of the petal.

Gently move the water towards the paint and let the water kiss the paint. Gently pull the color out towards the outer edge of the petal. Keep in mind that you are trying to to create a gradient, not a solid block of color. Keep your darkest color in the shadows and just bring a little of the color out to the edge.

Repeat for each petal. Make sure that you are never working next to a wet petal or the paint will bleed, and you will lose the definition between petals. 

Add your center- I like to do small little squiggles with the very tip of the brush, leaving some white areas for interest and visual texture.

Repeat for all of your flowers.

OPTIONAL- When your flower is dry, you can glaze in some deeper shadows and add a just touch of a second color on the petals if you want- I added a warmer peach and a little yellow over a few areas of each petal to make it look sun kissed. I also deepened some of the shadows using a little of the purple from the purple flower in the bouquet to create greater contrast. Also, by repeating colors (like adding the purple from the purple flower into the shadows of my pink flower) it helps harmonize your color palette. 

I paint my leaves in basically the same way, however, while the leaf is still wet, I drop in just a tiny bit of one of my flower colors to just the tip and maybe one side of the leaf. You don’t have to do this, but it makes the leaves much more interesting and can help harmonize the green with the other colors in the bouquet so they all look like they belong together.

OPTIONAL- add just a little bit of splattering using colors from the flowers. I know not everyone loves splatter, but I find it adds that little extra something to the card. Definitely not necessary, but now is the time to add it if you want it.

When your flowers are painted and dry, die cut your bouquet using the LDRS Creative Rounded Rectangle Frame die. After die cutting, leave the die and die cut in place, and use a pen to trace around the inside edge of the die. This creates a little black border on your die cut. 

Die cut all the other layers you will need:

 1- LDRS Creative Rounded Rectangle frame one size up from the size you used for your flowers out of a darker / patterned paper (this will be the mat behind the flower piece you just die cut)

1- Brass and Bliss Nested Rectangle Small Stitch die from watercolor paper (which size die you use will depend on how wide of a border you want around your card). I use cheap watercolor  paper for this… basically I’m just trying to get a similar off white that matches the off white of the Arches paper I painted the flowers on. If you have a brighter white watercolor paper you painted on, you can just use white cardstock for this step.

1- 4.25” x 5.5” rectangle from the darker / patterned paper

NOTE:  I made my patterned paper using the same paint that I used in my pink flower so it matches perfectly. Feel free to use a solid color, or a printed patterned paper if you don’t want to design your own custom paper— however, if you have backgrounds laying around, this is a great way to use them. Even backgrounds that you don’t really love can look great when all you are seeing is a thin border of them!

Tape your flower piece to the Platform and set up the MISTI Lite over top of it. Stamp your sentiment using Inkon3 Blackout ink. I’m using a sentiment from Brass and Bliss Hellebore Floral, but you can choose whatever sentiment you want. I like how easy the MISTI Lite and Platform makes it to stamp straight- even on pieces that are oddly shaped and won’t fit nicely into a corner!

Time to assemble- Glue the patterned paper rectangle to the front of an A2 card base- it should cover the full front of the card. Next glue on the watercolor paper rectangle. Mat the flower piece with the corresponding patterned paper piece. The now matted flower piece can either be glued flat to the card for a thinner card, or it can be attached with foam tape for more dimension. 

Add doodles or gems stones if you want for a little extra something. 

I’m excited to be joining the My Sweet Petunia team, and I hope you will stop by again for more inspiration and tutorials!

Happy painting! 

My Sweet Petunia Tools: MISTI Lite, Platform, Power Mag

Paper: Arches Cold Press watercolor paper, Neenah A2 card base

Stamps: LDRS Creative Bouquet Maker; Brass and Bliss Hellebore Floral (sentiment)

Stencil/mask: LDRS Creative Bouquet Maker

Ink: Inkon3 Fadeout, Blackout

Color: watercolors- Masha’s Watercolors Peach, Weathered Rose, Tree Bark, Dark Planet, Blue Mist, Shadow Green Dark, Quin Gold Deep; Rockwell Magic Wizard

Dies: LDRS Creative Rounded Rectangle Frame; Brass and Bliss Nested Rectangle Small Stitch

You can find more from me on Instagram- @klynneart and on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@klynneart