Watercolour Wednesday - Wild Cats

 Oh my, did I get messy today! In actual fact I was very blue! I really did have fun too. 😀😀 However back to today's card. I placed a Stampin' block onto the ink pad and added quite a lot of water and mixed the colour well then using a wide water brush, I spread the ink all across the paper. I did this using the really gorgeous bright blue (Pacific Point), Very strong orangey-yellow (mango Melody) and of course the palest blue of Balmy Blue. Then, using the In The Wild papers and some sentiments from the stamp set, Wild Cats, the card was completed. An unusual colour for the big cats but I think they look really cute.

Although I got a little messy, I had great fun washing the ink across the white card. It's really very therapeutic. The tail on the sentiment is the vines stamp made into the banner tail.

Watercolour Wednesday - Tasteful Touches

For today's card I started playing with ink scribbled onto a block and spritzed using lots of water to spread it all around. Sounds simple? Yes it is. It's is so simple that my granddaughter Bella has been doing the watercolouring now for about 3 years and she is only 10 years old. This is one of my preferred ways of watercolouring to get a complete piece of card with mixed colours all over. I used only 4 colours for this card and it shows on each flower differently.  For more information on the stamp set please click HERE   the dies or bundle HERE

I started by stamping the leaves onto the card then using a narrow embossing folder called Greenery, I embossed just the one side. I mounted the flowers using the foam pads or Dimensionals then coloured little areas of the flowers with clear Wink Of Stella. I have used some of the lovely white Crinkled Seam Binding, Using the Granny Apple Green stamp n' write marker pen, I coloured the ribbon very easily. The ink is water based so dried on the ribbon very quickly. The amazing thing about Stampin' Up! ribbon, is that they can be coloured to whatever colour you like. Really cool! The white mat was fixed to the green card mat, the now dry, coloured ribbon was added then were fixed onto the white card base. I stamped the message onto a scrap of card then using one of the dies from the coordinating Tasteful Labels dies, cut out the circle. There was a piece of the watercoloured paper left so I die cut another circle out, cut it in half and placed behind the message. 

Another piece of card for the inside and a message and decoration to finish this one off. Yes, this was another very simple watercolour card.

 

  

Watercolour Wednesday - Joyful Holly

 Hello, today's card I have had immense fun making! For a change I thought I would broaden my experiences in watercolouring. I have looked at lots of videos online and discovered the watercolouring  technique using salt and dropping other colours onto the wet card! Surprisingly though, I stayed clean! 

 I started by taking a piece of watercolour card from Stampin' Up! and spritzed it with lots of water. I inked a large block with Pacific Point, a really lovely strong bright blue. I spritzed the block really well too and then added it onto the wet card. Sliding it across the card to cover the whole piece, I left it for a few seconds to absorb all of the ink really well. Once the block came off, I added some table salt to the card, literally spraying the salt all over it. While it was still wet, I dropped 2 drops of re-inker in Yellow, Pink and Green onto a block, (also called Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay). I added a few drops of water to each colour and just dropped each colour randomly over the mat using my watercolour brush. I then went and made a cup of tea while it dried a bit.

On my return, I stamped the Holly sprig onto a piece of white card using Memento Black ink pad and then stamped the leaves with the most gorgeous green called Granny Apple Green. I took another piece of watercolour card and repeated the wetting process and another block stamped Granny Apple Green all over it. After spritzing the card and the block with lots of water, I again sprinkled more salt over that piece too. More information on the stamp set used Joyful Holly, HERE

Tea now long gone, I helped the card pieces to dry a little bit more using the Heat gun. The holly was added onto the green mat and the Blue mat, I chopped up! I cut the piece into long, narrow, triangle shaped pieces and then mixed them up. I then started to glue them to a standard card mat which was 10.5cm by 14.85cm. As you can see, I left a little of the white mat showing below the coloured card to accentuate the shapes. Bruno Bertolucci calls it a scrappy card technique. 

 

I cut the blue coloured mat into 2 pieces and added half to each side of the card base. the Holly having been glued to the green mat was then fixed to the centre of the card on one side of the card only. 

2 little messages, some more holly stamped and fussy cut (yes, it has to be done) and then added one to each side of the card to complete. I know it's a very bright Christmas card but I quite like that it's really different and I know to whom I am going to send it too!