Watercolour Wednesday Leaf Collection

 So how do you use a large background stamp such as the gorgeous Leaf collection with watercolour?  There must be many ways but the one that popped into my head was a fun one. I'm  not sure what it's called but it's a fun one to do for sure! The Leaf collection stamp is proving to be so very versatile! 

The card starts out by chosing your colour palette.  This card is all shades of green 💚. You can choose as many as you like but be prepared to play around because each time will be unique. 

Place your stamp on a wipe clean surface such as the Glass studio mat . Then using your water based markers colour your stamp. Make sure the pens are Not alcohol markers as these will not come off your stamp!

Once you've coloured the stamp in take a piece of watercolour paper and spritz it lightly with water. Then spritz your coloured in stamp and place the watercolour paper on top. Let the paper sit for a moment to absorb the water and ink.

Once you take the paper off the stamp be sure to place it on to a flat surface and let it dry completely. 

Once you have your beautiful background the sky's the limit with what you can use it for. For today's inspiration I went with an oldie but goodie technique.  Called triple stamping it's a really fun way to make the most of your background. 

Start by trimming you background to the size you want it to be, in this case 14.4cm x  10cm. The take a set of nesting dies, I've used the Deckled rectangle dies, and select 3 that fit together but leave even gaps.   Carefully place all three dies onto your background panel and die cut them at once. 

Next cut narrow mats to adhere each layer onto. I chose to use the same shade of green as the cardstock used for the card base. Then adhere each layer together so that the pattern flows as if it hadn't been cut apart.

As you can see I chose to stamp the sentiment directly onto the center panel.  But you could put your sentiment on a seperate mat and attatch anywhere on the card.

I scattered a few grey pearls around and added a strip of the off cut background inside the card.

I do hope you'll give this fun technique a go. 😀

 

Tech 4 Stampers blog hop

Welcome to 2 Big Girls Crafting and my post for this months Tech 4 Stampers blog hop. The theme for this month's hop is .. Birthday. 

For the background blend ink directly on to a panel of basic white cardstock.  Then make an ink pad using kitchen roll and water. Fold 3 sheets of kitchen roll in half and place on a water proof surface.  Next add water until the paper is very wet. 

Now using a stamp ink up with the water and stamp onto the blended mat.

I used the amazing Leaf collection  background stamp.

Leave the stamp on the mat to allow the water to soak in. Once the stamp is removed the image will take a while to develop so be patient. 

The effect is subtle and beautiful 😍 It has a damask look to it.

Once the panel is dry cut to fit your project. Save the off cuts and use them on the inside of your card.

A simple sentiment is all this background needs. So I stamped the same birthday sentiment 3 times once in each of the colours from the background. I used peach pie, petunia pop and pretty in pink inks all from the 2024-2026 In-Color collection. 

 For more inspiration please hop on over to all the others in this blog hop . Below are all the links. And please don't forget to leave comments as you go.... they really make the creator's feel valued. 🙂

Tips tricks and techniques Tuesday Leaf Collection

 Snip snip... who likes fussy cutting?  Well if you do then today's inspiration is just up your street! The Leaf collection stamp is great for cutting up. You can use this great stamp by cutting up the stamped image up to create a fun card.

The colour palette for this card is fun and bright.  The great advantage to stamping is that you get to create in any colour scheme you like! Pink and blue leaves can work just as well with and instead of green ones!

Stamp the image once in each of your chosen colours. Working in three's works well when working out your colour palette.  You can check out the colour wheel on page 132 /133 of the Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue for more colour theory and inspiration. Check here and Here for more ideas. 

To add a little something extra use alcohol markers to colour some rhinestones to coordinate with the leaves.

And don't forget to use any leftover leaves or the ones from the edges to decorate the inside of your card.

Make it simple Monday Leaf Collection

 Hello and welcome to the start of my week's posts. If you're new here my name's Cary and I'm 1 half of 2 Big Girls Crafting. This week I'll be sharing inspiration using just 1 stamp ... well 1 stamp and some sentiment stamps actually 🤣. The one stamp is a large background stamp called Leaf Collection.  

Now this beautiful stamp is a big one for sure! Measuring 11.5cm x 14.5cm ( 4½" x 5⅝") it is great for all those backgrounds! But as you'll see this week it's not one that has to stay in the background! 

So lets start with the basics. How do you stamp such a large stamp! Now some of you have mentioned before that large stamps, especially ones like the Leaf Collection which is a cling mount,  are particularly tricky to stamp. The easiest was is perhaps with a stamp positioning tool but what do you do if you don't have one?

Well in this short video I'll share 3 easy ways to get you eager to get those background stamps out of your stash and onto your projects. 

Hopefully you can now stamp with this gorgeous stamp. And if you don't already have it in your stash by the end of the week hopefully the inspiration shared will make you want it 😉🤣

So what did I do with the backgrounds I stamped? Well I stamped 2 more! The colour palette is inspired by autumn ( fall for our friends over the pond 🍂🍁). The colours are daffodil delight ( yellow) , crushed curry (deep yellow), wild wheat (greeny yellow), pumpkin pie (orange) and finally cajun craze (terracotta) .

Once all the panels are stamped trim then to the same size 10cm x 14.4cm ( 5" x 5") Next cut them all into strips measuring 3cm x 14.4cm ( 1" x 5") making sure to keep them in pattern order.

Then lay them out so that they follow the correct pattern order but change to colour order to creat 5 different patterns. 

You can either cut cardstock mats to adhere them to or adhere them directly onto your card base.

Once on your card base create simple sentiments and adhere them to the card front. 

You can mix it up by making your cardbases landscape, portrait, top folding. 

All together this makes a fun set of cards that are perfect to gift to someone. 

Pop by tomorrow for more fun with this fantastic stamp. 😀

Fun Fold Friday - Changing Leaves

Hello, today is the end of the week's blog posts for me and I have gone with a fold that sort of appeared. Using the Changing Leaves stamp set, I decided to make a simple fold and incorporate a few die cuts and some of the sentiments. My fold really is simple. Using a piece of A4 card, I scored the piece in half lengthwise and widthwise then cut off the top left rectangle. I then scored down the left hand panel to give 2 narrow, identical panels on the left hand side of the card base. I trimmed about 2 mm from the 2 edges of the remaining top rectangle on the right so that the card would close comfortably when the panel is closed down. I burnished all of the folds and started to add some DSP. 

I started by adding some Peach Pie glimmer card from the 2024 - 2026 In Colour Glimmer onto the 2 left hand panels. I then added some of the Vellum DSP from the coordinating Graceful Greenery Vellum on top of the glimmer. It gives a lovely background. I trimmed down the panel that I had cut off to 10cm by 14.4cm and added it to the inisde on the right hand side of the card base. 

I then took a piece of DSP from another coordinating paper called Season of Green and Gold. It's gorgeous!! I added  that to the front of the right hand panel then added a frame that I had made from the glimmer paper. On top of that, I added the white patterened vellum from the Changing Leaves vellums. After chopping a few of the ferns and berried, I added them to the card in different places. 

 

Well that's it from me this week. It has been a very busy one. Trips to the doctors, dentist and more importantly my grandson Theo and Great-Grandson Lucien both started school on Wednesday. They walked off so happily and full of beans in their bright blue jumpers, white polo shirts and grey pressed trousers. Oh bless them! 

Anyway, Cary will be back to share her creations on Monday and I will be back the following week.  Until then and as always, take care, stay well but of course.....

KEEP ON CRAFTING

 😍😍😍 xxx Gill xxx 😍😍😍

This or That Thursday - Changing Leaves

Hello, now is the day for you to choose your favourite card. No pressure of course, that is of obviously dependant on if you like any of them! Using the Changing Leaves dies, embossing folder and stamps today, I started with pieces of A6 white card and a large F sized Stampin' Up! Acrylic Block.

Then for THIS card, using Stampin' Up Marker pens, I scribbled lots of circles and lines and basically just had fun scribbling! Once I had covered the block with ink, I woke it up with a good shower from a Spritzer. I gave it really good soak and the colours all turned into lots of bubbles. Then, I added the pieces of white card on top of the blocks and allowed the paper to soak up all of the colour. I repeated it a several times as I wanted to die cut out all of the pieces of patterned paper. I used my heat gun to dry them all as I'm too impatient to wait! Then I started going to town and die cut all of the small leaves in the die set. They came out really well and using an A4 sheet of white card, I adhered them in a cross shape of North, South, East and West across the paper. When the glue had dried I chopped them all into A6 pieces. So, 10cm by 14.4cm or 4" by 5,13/16th" I am sure that you have different measurements outside the UK so use those instead!

THIS 

Here are all of the first 4 cards

Card 1 above in Granny Apple Green card base

Card 2 in  Garden Green card base.

Card 3 in Pretty Peacock card base.

Card 4 in Lemon Lime Twist card base

All 4 cards for THIS

 

I didn't make the one card as you may have guessed as I got 4 card fronts from the A4 piece. Yes, I made a set of 4 very similar cards and the other card,  my THAT card, is different again.  

THAT

THAT 

So my THAT card is another one this time in a Lost Lagoon card base. I started with an embossed mat in the Changing Leaves embossing folder and a strip of Lost Lagoon about 4cm wide by the length of the white card mat. I stamped 4 of the smaller leaf in memento onto some scraps of white card and then proceeded to use my Stampin Blends to colour them in. I used of course the Lost Lagoon blends pens. I fussy cut all four out and then cut them in down the centre. I adhered each piece to the back of the central bar in Lost Lagoon and added them onto the card base. I did emboss the Lost Lagoon bar too by the way. I stamped the sentiment and die cut it out and added the last leaf to the back of the sentiment bar too. 

That was it. 

Please let me know which you like? Will it be the set of 4 THIS cards or the single THAT card in Lost Lagoon?

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Changing Leaves

Hello, today's card has really made me feel like Autumn is here. Using the Changing Leaves stamp set, I started by stamping all 3 leaves onto a piece of watercolour paper using Versamark ink pad. I used my stamping platform to make sure that the whole images were on the paper so I stamped the images several times to make sure. I covered the whole sheet with Copper embossing powder from the Metallics range of embossing powders and then heat set it. After a few minutes to ensure it was cool, I began soaking the watercolour paper with lots of water and then added stripes of colour from a block. I had used my Stampin' Write Marker pens on a large block using Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight and Poppy Parade pens. I then spritzed the water all over the block and added the block to the paper which have all of the leaves on. The colours mingled together somewhat and turned a hazy colour of light orange once it was dry. I had to use my heat gun to speed the drying up.

Once dry, I cut a smaller mat than usual at 8.52cm by 12.5cm or 5" by 3,3/8" of the leaves and added it to a plain white mat. I embossed the card base with the Fern embossing folder to add some more texture and using Dimensionals, I added the 2 mats onto the card base in Pumpkin Pie. A simple 'Thank You' and it was complete.