Watercolour Wednesday - Blends Classes

On the last Monday of every month, Cary and I hold a monthly Blends class. Now I know that this is not Watercolouring but it's another amazing way to add colour to your projects. We have been holding this class now since Stampin' Up! started making the Blends, which I think is over 3 years now. They are amazing alcohol markers in most of the Stampin' Up! colour range. 

Here is a few that I have made over the year. I have added a watercolour card in too just to show how beautiful all of the colours are whether they are Blends or watercoloured.

 

 

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Massive Thanks

This week is all about Thank you. Cary and I and our amazing family of friends have all been making Thank you cards for a campaign here in the UK. It's called Hug a Hospital. The purpose is to thank all of the nursing and medical staff for having worked so hard over the last year. So, using new and retired products, we are all busy making as many cards as we can.  Today's card is obviously watercoloured as it's Wednesday. I couldn't for the life of me get the right background that I wanted so I used some Basic White card and coloured that. It was perfect. I have added White die cut sunflowers from the Sunflower set of dies and a little flower stamped on the inside of the card. I did add a little extra with some of the leaves and sprigs die cut from some silver foiled card. A 'little Thank you' and a length of ribbon and it's completed. 

For more information on the Massive Thanks stamp set please click on HERE 

and for the Celebrate Sunflower Bundle, please click HERE 

This will be one of my all time favourites!

Watercolour Wednesday - Delicate Petals

 Hello again on this really cold day here in the UK. Boy it is really cold today! Never mind, I don't care as I'm having fun crafting and making cards. I never get bored when I'm making cards, do you? Today's card is watercoloured but when I started it, I had no idea how it was going to materialise into one! I started by stamping the large petal 3 times onto some post it notes or sticky labels. I peeled off 4 together and cut through all 4 layers which then gave me 16 petal shapes. I then stamped onto a piece of white card and stamped each petal one by one covering each petal after it was stamped as I didn't want the ink to go onto the previously stamped one. 

You can see here what they all looked like once I had finished. Leaving the post it notes in situ enabled me to stamp the smaller petal on the edges so that they just popped through the other petals. I then fussy cut it out.

 

After I fussy cut the flower out, I stamped some of the smaller petals again but this time the were inked with the lovely soft yellow of So Saffron and I 'kissed' the petals with Pear Pizazz, the lovely soft green ink. Kissing the stamp with other inks just gives the tips and the edges of the petals a different shade of colour. It was at this stage that I inked an acrylic block with the soft yellow and using a water brush, I washed the ink across the petals. One by one, they were each added to the next in a spiral and I finished off with circle in the centre. For a change, I added Rhinestones to the card to give some sparkle to conplete it.  

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Ornate Garden Suite

 For today's card, obviously watercoloured, I did a technique that I often do. I added some colours using the ends of the ink pads onto a large acrylic block. I used 5 different colours from pinks , lilac and greens. I spritzed a piece of watercolour paper with water and then spritzed the block and immediately the colours started to mix together. Wasting no further time, I wiped the block over the paper and allowed the ink to be absorbed and left it to dry.

Once it had dried I took the 2 words SO GRATEFUL and THANK YOU and stamped them quite closely to each other then cut them closer still. You can see how the colours have blended and given me such different shades on them all. I took a white mat and embossed it with the Argyle embossing folder from Stampin' Up! I decided to add dimensionals (foam pads) to the backs of the words and added a few of the small flowers from Ornate Thanks stamp set. I added a few more of the messages to the inside from the set and an other THANK YOU to complete it.
A very simple card that didn't take a lot of work but I am pleased with the result. I hope you like it too.

Watercolour Wednesday - Most Wonderful Time

 It certainly is getting close now! I apologise for not showing any project yesterday and the day before. Life has been so hectic that time has just escaped me! Well, have you started making your Christmas cards yet? No? Well we have started to make some examples to get us going. So here goes!

I made time today for some watercolouring. Using a large acrylic block, and most of the Subtles Ink Pads (the paler shades) I inked the block about 2cm at a time so that all of the colours were along the block. I spritzed a piece of Watercolour Paper with water and also spritzed the block so that the colours would merge on it. I'm really quite pleased with the result. I love watercolouring this way as I'm not good enough to watercolour designs, this way, not even I can go wrong. I tried by using the marker pens but couldn't add enough of the ink to make the colour strong enough. Once the paper was lovely and wet, I placed the block ink down onto it. Then slowly dragged it from one side to the other. Once dry I used the HAPPY die. I repeated it using Gold Foiled paper and used wet glue to add it to the gold like a shadow. I repeated the same with the Christmas die. The Happy was fixed using black sticky foam and the Christmas with wet glue. I fussy cut the parcels and ribbons which were stamped in the gorgeous Blackberry Bliss Ink. I embossed the card front with the Woodland embossing folder. All in all a very simple watercolour card.

Here's my piece of watercolour card that I played with.