Watercolour Wednesday - In My Heart

Hello, my card today is the 2nd attempt that I made. Using the In My Heart stamp set again today, I didn't like the first one at all so I tore it up! 

I have been crafting for a long time now and there are still cards that get torn up and thrown away! I am more pleased with the second attempt fortunately. I started with Fluid 100 watercolour paper and started by soaking it with spritzing it with water. Then using a wide brush, I brushed some watered down ink straight across the paper. I used Misty Moonlight to start and then from abour 2 thirds of the way down, I change and added watered down Mossy Meadow ink. I find that if I stamp a clear block onto the ink pad and add a few drops of water onto it, I get the colour I want.

I am pleased with the results as I wanted it to be an evening effect and a couple having a cuddle under the tree in the moonlight. I punched out a circle for the moon and added Daffodil Delight ink randomly over the circle and heavier in some places. I stamped the image with black Stazon ink pad and then carefully started to watercolour the images in. It took a while and a heat gun to try to speed up the drying process a bit. 

 

Tips, Tricks and Techniques Tuesday - Sketched Butterflies

 Hello and thank you for joining me today. With the Sketched Butterflies stamp set today, I have made a semi-easy card. I started by stamping 3 images of the mid-sized butterfly and coloured them in using the gorgeous yellow of Daffodil Delight and the lovely soft, orange tone of Peach Pie in my Stampin' Blends Pens. After fussy cutting them out, I put them to the side. I cut a strip of 7cm wide white card and embossed it using one of the 3D Basics embossing folders, although any folder will do. I added this mat to the left hand side of the card front and then using Tombow Multipurpose Glue, I adhered the butterflies to the right hand side of the embossed, smaller, top mat. I fussy cut out the right hand side of the butterflies only where they were overlapping the edge of the mat and the middle of the card base. Yes, through both layers of card and it wasn't difficult.

I added some butterflies on another white mat for the inisde of the card and stamped a sentiment inside and on the scrap of card that I cut from the card front. With another piece of the card scrap and my Peach Pie Blend, I coloured across the white to make my own background to go behind the front sentiment mat and trimmed them both down. 

Watercolour Wednesday - Crafting With You

 Hello on another wet Wednesday. Using the lovely stamp set Crafting With You today, I have gone back to school so to speak! My uniform when at school was exactly the colours I have used here... Black Skirt, Yellow blouse and black or white socks! This was purely by accident until I had finished the card I hadn't realised what I'd done! I think it was the board and easel stand that I suddenly saw my uniform again! Anyway, a semi simple watercolour today. I started by stamping the board and easel onto a plain white mat and then with some cut offs of watercolour paper that I had, I laid them out in the order you see and stamped the image again. It worked!! I used the watercolour from the block technique as it works really well so it was just a case of adding the colour to the flowers and leaves and it was complete. I used Stazon Jet Black Ink for the easel but it looks red here??? How odd! 

Apologies for the wrong pictures to start off with. Here are the correct ones!

Watercolour Wednesday - Sale-a-bration - Detailed Dogwood

 Hello on this very wet watercolour Wednesday! Today is the perfect day for watercolouring too. Using the large image from the Detailed Dogwood stamp set, I stamped onto Stampin' Up!'s Fluid 100 watercolour paper using Stazon Jet Black ink pad. I don't know what was wrong but I really didn't like it! So I stamped it again a few more times then reverted to using Basic White card instead. I got the beautiful image that I was clearly after. I coloured the image in by dropping a few drops of re-inker onto an acrylic block then I carefully coloured the flowers and leaves one by one. I made sure that I dried each colour before starting on the next one. Yes, the next thing I did was fussy cut it out! It was quite fiddly as there are quite a few leaves and petals too but I love to fussy cut so I wasn't bothered doing it. 

I made a card base using the Granny Apple Green and as it is a landscape shaped card it was 29.7cm by 10.5cm and scored at 14.85cm. I then cut the front panel to measure 10cm wide. I added a piece of DSP to the inside of the card from the Flight and Airy DSP. This is another of the Sale-a-bration offers too. I used the Bubble Bath piece and added a smaller piece to the side of it. I cut the white mat for the front of the card and stamped the leaves on before I used the Softly Sophisticated embossing folder again for both of the front white pieces. I added the Flower using Dimensionals, the sentiment onto a white mat which was punched out using the Label Me Lovely Punch. The green one around it was fussy cut out! 

Now I think I've gabbled enough so here are some pictures.

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Gift of Giving and Joy To You

 Here we are on this very wet Wednesday. Here in the UK we are having the most horrendous amount of wind and rain. In fact we have had severe weather warnings so to wash away the rain I chose to make a really fresh and happy coloured card. Well I think it is anyway! I used the watercolour brush and washed the gorgeous soft pink of Bubble Bath ink all over the centre of the white mat. Once it was dry and using a Stazon Jet Black Ink pad and the Gift Of Giving stamps, I stamped the lovely little gift boxes and then started to give them a lovely watercolour wash in the individual colours. 

I matched colours up with the ribbon which is Sweet Sorbet Metallic Woven Ribbon. I mounted the white mat onto a piece of pink in the Bubble Bath card then added these to the White card base. I finished the card with the sentiment from Joy To You stamp set.

 

This or That Thursday - Legendary Ride

As always, I enjoy making the this and that cards as they are very similar to each other but still very different. Today's cards are no exception. Using the Legendary Ride stamps and dies, I stamped 2 of the big motorbikes. One onto a piece of dark, silver foiled card and the other onto white card. I die cut the silver frames for both of the bikes and adhered them to the bikes. The first card base, I cut the centre of the front panel out and added a sheet of Vellum to the reverse of it. I then embossed the front of the card using the Metal Plate embossing folder. I added the foiled motorbike to this one but sadly the photos don't show it so well! If you look closer at the picture, you will be able to see the detail a lot easier.

 The second card was more straightforward. I embossed the front of the card base alone and added the stamped and die cut motor bike to it. A few sentiments onto foil and Basic Gray card and both cards are complete. 

I wonder which you will all prefer?

Card 1

 

 

Card 2

 

Watercoloour Wednesday - At The Pond

Hello again and thank you for stopping by. Today's watercolour I have cheated a little. We have a new range of Designer Series Papers called Fancy Flora and the sheet I chose reminds me so much of the Monet's bridge. So I have paired it with the At The Pond stamps. The cute little frogs are really gorgeous and I think the paper is perfect for the frogs too.

I did water colour some white paper by soaking it in water and then some watered down ink washed all over. Once it was dry, I stamped the images using the Saddle Brown Stazon Ink Pad. I think the brown looks more realistic against the black ink. I fussy cut all of the images out, yes, I know that I'm crazy but I find it very therapeutic and relaxing. 

Watercolour Wednesday - Christmas Lights

Christmas Lights and Brightest Glow 

Today's card is a watercolour tree that sort of floats over the card! I start by stamping the Christmas tree from the Christmas Lights stamp set onto watercolour paper and then spritzing the paper with water all over. I used Stazon Ink Pad for the stamping as it's a pigment based ink and not water based as the classic ink pads are. Using my usual form of taking ink to the water colour paper, I stamped a block onto the classic ink pad. I used the gorgeous, rich green of Shaded Spruce and then added some drops of water to the ink on the block. Using a large water painter brush, I added lots of ink in several layers all over the tree and drying it with a piece of kitchen roll in between the layers of ink. Once I had got the strength of colour that I wanted, I left it to dry for a while. I then prepared my card base by adding a piece of the In Colour glimmer card in the beautiful shade of Orchid Oasis. I had prepared it by die-cutting the tree from the centre of the card mat and also die-cutting a silver tree to add to the inside of the aperture. The purple mat was added using Dimensionals and the silver tree straight through the centre of the hole. I had poked a small hole through the star at the top of both trees and added a piece of Dimensional below the top one. Then I placed a small white brad between the 2 trees and secured them both in place. This then enables the green tree to float and wobble above the card. 

Watercolour Wednesday - Cheerful Basket

Here we are again on a Wednesday for the water-colouring. Now water-colouring isn't really my thing but I am trying really hard to learn as much as I can. Today's card was one that I knew how I wanted it to look but wasn't positive that it would work so with the Cheerful Basket stamp set I stamped the apples in Saddle Brown Stazon ink and the apples in Tuxedo Black Stazon ink. Then I had fun. I started by die-cutting the corner from a C6 white mat using the Split Card Textures die and got my son to choose a base colour. He chose Granny Apple Green. (Love It)!

I decided to emboss the green mat with one of the retired Meadow Moments Embossing Folders and added it to the Basic White card Base. I mounted the White die-cut mat on top of the green using Dimensionals to add another layer. After that I started to colour the apples and basket in. I like to use a block to add the ink to and by adding a few drops of water on top, mixed it and used it for colouring. I used 3 different colours for the basket with Crumb Cake, Early Espresso and Soft Suede. The apples were a little different in as much as they are made up of so many different colours. I used, So Saffron, Granny Apple Green, Calypso Coral and Sweet Sorbet. That is a lot of colours but I think they look better in a multitude of colour. What do you think?

 

Here's my working on the apples, only problem is that I wasn't paying proper attention! Hearts instead of apples!!

Watercolour Wednesday - This Birthday Piggy

Watercolour Wednesday already! Where do the days go to? Today's card is the best way that I love to watercolouring is going the whole hog so to speak. That is by watercolouring the whole lot! Using the stamps from This Birthday Piggy today, I stamped the motor scooter using a Stazon ink pad onto a C6 card mat. Stazon is a pigment based ink pad and necessary when water colouring not a water based ink pad. I used the Stampin' Up! watercolour pencils set 1 and set 2 and water colour brushes. I then decided to fussy cut all of the aspects of the image out right down to the tiny little stars, circles etc. Basically I paper pieced the whole lot. The only part that I actually watercoloured on the card itself was the ground and the background. I had great fun! I know...I can hear you saying that I am mad but I really did enjoy doing it!

I used Melon Mambo card for the mat behind the white mat on both the front and the inside of the card. I restamped the scooter, watercoloured it in, fussy cut it out and added to the inside to complete this card.

Watercolour Wednesday - Encircled In Friendship

 I really had fun getting messy with today's card. Now, those of you who know me, know that I HATE getting messy when I craft. So for me to get messy it probably isn't as bad as when Cary gets messy. She just LOVES it! Using Encircled In Friendship stamp set, I took a C6 mat and washed some very light blue of Balmy Blue over it. I picked up the colour from an acrylic block that I stamped onto the ink pad. I find it's so much easier watercolouring that way. Once it was dry, I stamped the flowers across the centre using a Stazon Ink Pad in Tuxedo Black and then added a piece of paper from the NEW Sunshine and Rainbows designer series paper, DSP. Stazon ink pad is a pigment based ink pad and it's not affected by water colouring. Using the same block, I added 2 drops of ink refil in the Balmy Blue  onto the block and started to add water from my brush to it. I coloured in the flowers and then the leaves in that gorgeous green of Granny Apple Green in exactly the same way.

Once they were all dry, I added 2 more drops to the colouring block and got the darker blue to do the highlighting on the flowers. I stamped the interior with the main flowers and repeated the same process as I did on the front. I had some tiny strips of DSP left over and added them to the inside as a highlight and completed this card.