Watercolour Wednesday - Embraced With Love

 Hello again. Today I have actually done some proper watercolouring again. After stamping the image onto a piece of Fluid 100 water colour paper, I started to watercolour. Now I'm not sure what the animals actually are but to me they look like racoons. Once again I'm not sure what colours they are so I have used Pecan Pie and Cajun Craze ink pads to water colour them in. I also used the Whisper White Ink pad to tone in with some of the colour and mixed it over to make some of the lighter parts. Basically, I roughly copied the images in the seasonal catalogue! I actually stamped 5 lots of these and eventually settled on the colour combo that I liked. I apologise to animal lovers if my colouring is wrong. I really enjoy the calm of water colouring it is so relaxing. The brush slides across the paper and the paper soaks up the colour so quickly that you have to work well with some tissue or something to soak up the water and build the colour up in many layers. 

I recently pre-ordered a pack of NEW DSP from the Winter seasonal Mini catalogue and I used a piece for the mat on my card base. It is called Splendid Autumn. They are 6" by 6" papers and they are gorgeous. The scenery in them all so beautiful and the backs of the papers are just as stunning too! I added the fussy cut animals into the centre of the flowers to show them nestling down for a cuddle.

I then finished off by adding a sentiment or 2. I used the Oval duo punch for the sentiment on the front of my card.

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. 

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Family & Friends

Using the Family & Friends stamp set again today, I cheated a little! Instead of watercolouring the whole background, I have used a piece of Designer Series Paper. It is from the Hues of Happiness papers which are stunning to say the least.

 

The piece that I used is the last on the bottom right. Aren't they just gorgeous? Anyway, now I am sure that many of you have family and friends living abroad so for this one, I stamped the couple and then watercoloured them using the water painters and ink which I added onto an acrylic block from the ink pad. I seem to prefer taking the ink from the block, it's less messy too. I think this would work for me as I have many family and friends in much warmer countries than here in the UK. I die cut the image out using the Stitched Rectangle dies and added it to a piece of Granny Apple Green card. A few sentiments inside and out and another stamped image on the inside completes today's card. I also use Charming Sentiments for the sentiment on the inside.

  

Watercolour Wednesday - Heron Habitat

I really had fun making this card for today with the Heron Habitat stamp set and dies . I had a piece of Fluid 100 watercolour paper and using a tablespoon of water and a few drops of Balmy Blue ink refill. I washed the blue right across the whole piece of paper. I dried it with my heat gun and repeated the process again using a stronger mix of colour. I continued to do this again but this time using Pear Pizazz and quite a wide, dry brush. Just building up colour and adding drops of ink to the water, I eventually got a muddy sort of colour where the trees and the riverbank came from. I did add a little more colour by squishing my Crumb Cake ink pad and adding a little more colour. Ink refills are absolutely brilliant!

Now as a young girl and one of 5 children, I remember my big brother Trevor, drawing swans and riverbanks. He used to stick his tongue out around his lips while he was drawing! We still take the mickey out of him for doing it. :)) I was remembering him as I was painting the card, it still brings a smile and a chuckle to my face! He's so far away now as he lives in Canada with his family and sadly I haven't seen him for about 4 years. :(  One day...

I continued this time but this time I used the Heron dies and found it really quick too. I cut the legs from the lower heron to show that she's nesting. I hope she is anyway! I cut the paper down to 10cm by 14.4cm and mounted it onto an Old Olive card base.

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Count On Me

One of my favourite dies I like to use when I have multiple images and don't know which to use is The Picture This duo of dies. Count On Me stamp set is the perfect set to use this with. I started by stamping all of the animals in the set onto some Basic White card. I used Stazon Jet Black ink pad as I was going to be watercolouring. It's always wise to use an alcohol based ink pad when watercolouring and you can use a water based ink pad for other kinds of colouring. For example, using Alcohol Marker pens like Stampin' Up! Blends pens or Stamp n' write double-ended Marker Pens. I started by die-cutting some circles slightly larger than the holes in the die of Picture This. I then die cut the holes from the piece of Granny Apple Green card and also used the Stitched Greenery die all over the piece of card. 

I stamped all of the images with Stazon and then began colouring them in using the ink pad and block technique. I used a Water Painters and coloured all of the images in. Once they were all dry, I started to position them over some circles I had drawn through the green mat. Once they were all in the correct position, I added adhesive to them and added the mat using Dimensionals to add some dimension. A few sentiments to top it all off and the card was completed.