Watercolour Wednesday Zoo Crew

 Did you know you can colour pattern paper? Did you know you can watercolour onto pattern paper?  If you didn't,  and even if you did 😉, here's  a fun and quick way to add lots of colour easily to pattern paper. I love that the Zoo Crew pattern paper is all black and white patterns on one side. This give the technique I'm sharing today lots of possibilities. 

I do have a few top tips to share first. 1 make sure that you don't add too much water after all pattern paper isn't as sturdy as watercolour paper. 2 make sure you have everything to hand. 3 kitchen roll is your best friend for quick clean up and spill and damp patches. 4 make sure your work surface is covered just in case 😉 

So lets get started all You need to do is dab water based ink pads on to a silicon sheet or other wipe clean sheet. Then spritz  with water and dab your pattern paper onto the ink. Super simples. Here's a real time video  to show how quick and easy it is!

Once you've created you piece either set it aside to dry, or if you're like me use your heat tool to speed up the process 🤣 ( please be careful when using the heat tool to keep moving it around and not too close to the piece otherwise you risk scorching or even burning the paper)

So here's the card that I made using my pattern paper.

I cut the cute critter from the pattern paper and the stamped the sentiment from the coordinating Zany Zoo stamp set.

A couple of stitched circles and I was happy.

Watercolour Wednesday Beautiful Balloons

 Today I'm sharing a fun watercolour background.  The technique uses ink pads, watercolour paper, water and a cello bag! I wanted to created a background to show off some of the dies from the Beautiful Balloons bundle .

It all starts with spritzing a piece of watercolour paper with plenty of water. Next take an ink pad and dab it onto a cello bag. 

 

Next pop your hand into the bag and scrunch it up a little.

Then dab it onto the wet watercolour paper. 

I do make sure that the area is well protected so that any mess is easily cleaned up.

I then repeated the process using another shade of blue.  The 2 colours I used are called azure afternoon and blueberry bushel. 

I then put the panel to one side to dry. Next I took some gold foil and die cut some of the stars and tassels from the Beautiful Balloons bundle. I then mounted the panel onto a gold mat and stamped a sentiment onto it.

I used on of the 3 embossing folders in the Basics 3d embossing folder bundle to embosse the stars 🌟 I added the tassels to make the shooting stars 🌠 

As I had used a dark blue card base I decided to create an insert.

I love the way this card came together. The colours are rich and enhanced by the gold and the texture is fab. And it was fun to make 😃

Watercolour Wednesday 2023 retiring core colours

 Today's watercolour inspiration was from a short I saw on Facebook by an Australian demonstrator called Alisa Tilsner. The background is super easy to make so perfect for me 😉. Watercolour backgrounds are a great way to streatch you ink pad stash. And as this week's inspiration is all about using the retiring core colour inks it was just the technique to share!

So what colours am I using today... well there's pear pizzazz a soft mid tone green, so saffron a gentle yellow and mango melody a vibrant orange. 

So let's  get to the technique... all you will need is some fluid 100 watercolour paper, an acrylic block, waterbased ink pads and some kitchen paper. Oh and some water in a spritzer 😅 it is a watercolour technique after all!! 

First place your watercolour paper on some kitchen paper and spritz well with water. This is a wet technique.  You then place your acrylic block onto the ink pad and gather ink up onto it by tapping gently.

Now the fun part. Starting in one corner of the paper rub the acrylic block over the wet paper.  I  started with the so saffron ink.

I used the kitchen paper to rub the acrylic block clean.

Then I turned the paper around and used the mango melody ink in the same way.

I then dried the panel and set to making the card. I made a basic white card base and added a white mat on top. I embossed the white mat with the Fern embossing folder. 

I then stamped the large fern stamp from the Nature's Prints stamp set in pear pizzazz ink onto white cardstock.  

I fussy cut the fern image out even though the set has coordinating dies available.  I also stamped and fussy cut out the sentiment. 

I must admit I was a little unsure of thw colour palette when I thought of it but now I see it finished I think it works well.

 I think the texture on the white mat also gives the finished project a lovely dimension. 

I do hope you'll give the watercolour background tequnique a try. It has a lovely look to it. 

Watercolour Wednesday Sale-A-Bration Jan to Feb 2022

 Just a quick post today using a quick way to use watercolour.  I have also chosen to use a great bundle only available as a free item!!! Called Friendly Hello this bundle consists of stamps and beautiful pattern paper. This means you're set to create beautiful coordinating projects from the get go!! Which was perfect for my speedy project for today no worries about coordination.

 

Inspired by the gorgeous papers I chose a simple colour palette of a lovely shade of lilac called fresh freesia. I cut a mat of the speckles fresh freesia pattern paper and placed it onto a white card base.

Next for the watercolour portion of the project . I die cut a rectangle from some thick white cardstock. Then I stamped the image of the bird on the branch in versamark ink and heat embossed it with white embossing powder.

By choosing to heat emboss the image I didn't have to worry about the ink of thenimage smudging or running. It ment that I could just apply the watercolour wash over the top. All I had to do was gently rub the wash of the embossed areas.

Whilst I had the tools out to heat emboss I stamped and embossed a sentiment in white onto a piece of coloured cardstock. I then die cut the sentiment with a small stitched rectangle die.

 

To add a little something something to the inside I also heat embossed some of the sprig images onto a white mat in one corner and watercolour washed over it. I then placed the mat onto a mat of fresh freesia cardstock and adhered it to the inside of my project.

To give my card a little sparkle I got my trusty clear wink of stella pen out and coloured over thw flowers and bird. The effect is a lovely subtle shimmer which is quite difficult to capture in a photo but is beautiful in real life.

I also added a few of the gorgeous iridescent rhinestones just because they look great and I like them 😉

All in all a quick card with lots of style and a beautiful monochromatic palette.