The weather has been lovely, which means the yard work has taken over my life. Today there was a bit of rain and I'm using it as an excuse to stay inside and craft and join AAA Cards at the last possible minute.
This card used images and sentiment from Home Sweet Home, Simon Says Stamp. I colored with alcohol markers, and filled windows with shimmer pen.
I love watercolor looks but struggle with them every time. Painting images will require a class for me but doing backgrounds is really fun and helps me get used to the medium without all the stress. This video shared on Beyond the Blue challenge blog is a fantastic starter! Kirsty Partridge demonstrates quite a few easy ways to create awesome watercolor effects for your backgrounds.
I have been playing with them and used two below on cards. Taking stamped images with me camping is fun - I bring along colored pencils and a little clipboard. These fressia (Altenew) were colored with Prismacolor pencils at camp last week, and then blended with Gamsol when I got home.
I show two of Kirsty's techniques here. The first is done with Cotton Candy (Altenew 36 pan set) in a masked rectangle. I blotted with paper towel for the soft effect. The second I painted with Pink Diamond and Purple Wine and while wet used the plastic wrap technique. You must let it sit for several hours before lifting off the wrap. The paper will still be damp, so either use a heat gun or let it dry before die cutting or stamping. Both sentiments come from the same Fresh Fressia set and they were stamped with VersaMark black ink.
I loved creating CAS cards and these easy watercolor techniques can add depth and interest to a clean design.
Also linking to Colour Crazy Craft Challenge week 16 - Anything Goes, Color Something
My image and sentiment are from the Stampendous! Frog Yoga' set. I dug out my ancient Stampin'Up roller for the pond and lotus. I was thrilled I found it.
Sketch Saturday challenges are sponsored by Riley & Co. Play along and link up here.
It is a happy day when you are cleaning the craft room and find a drawer full of paper samples from years ago...with some of my very favorites! So glad I'd also saved the coordinating CTMH Bowl of Cherries stamp set. I used Pear, Cranberry and Chocolate inks.
My Design Team inspiration card for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #417
Each month I look forward to the arrival of my Mini stamp and die set and my Paint a Flower stamp from Altenew. They are versatile and come with tons of inspiration from the design team. This month's mini is a flower with two layers and a center, two leaves and a sentiment. I stamped them each several times using the Spring Bouquet inks, and added some shading to the darker leaves with an alcohol marker. I stamped the dotted panel using an older background stamp from my stash of CTMH. I also added a few dots to the flower centers with a micro pen, white heat embossed the sentiment and a flag. The white frames were on my desk after finishing another card that only used the larger ones. I had set them aside and thought they could add some interest and dimension to this card.
The challenge at Beyond the Blue is "Embossing & Ombre" So I have white heat embossing a panel with a background stamp from my stash of CTMH and ink blended with blues. The frames were cut with an Altenew die and adhered to a white card base. The sentiment stamp and die are Gina K.
My Design Team card for Sketch Saturday this week. I felt like painting with my new metallic watercolors so after silver embossing the floral image and sentiment from Simon Says Stamp 'Thankful Flowers' set, I colored the floral and splattered. I painted a panel to go behind the sentiment to match the leaves. uid pearls and Altenew silver thread finished the card.
Check out the sketch and link up with us at Sketch Saturday. Our weekly challenge is sponsored by Riley & Co.
I did some playing around with the gel press, stencil and stamps a while back, so I used a piece of a panel to create the horizontal panel and cut out the butterflies. The stitched cover die on the pink reminded me of the fluttery path of butterflies.
