Happy Holly

The February Christmas challenge over at Happy Little Stampers is "anything goes with an optional twist of holly".

I chose to use the optional twist as I love holly on Christmas cards.

 

I stamped and watercoloured my image.  I added some random pale grey text stamping over it and watered down some of the same grey ink and added some splatters. I framed it with a die cut panel and decided the sentiment would have to go on the inside as there was no logical place for it on the front.

Come and check out the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team at Happy Little Stampers and then post your Christmas card for a chance to win a prize.

And just a bit more inspiration from me - another holly card I made a while ago but never posted:

I stamped, heat embossed, and watercoloured the image, then fussy cut around the edges.  I mounted it on slightly sparkly red cs, die cut with a stitched square.

My first attempt at stamping the sentiment right on the red square ended up crooked so I redid it on a scrap and cut it out with a tag die and layered overtop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies for the first card:

Stamps - Penny Black Winter Joy, Wendy Vecchi script

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black, Memento London Fog

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - watercolour paints, Spellbinders label die, fun foam

Supplies for the second card:

Stamps - Serendipity Holly, A Muse sentiment

Ink - Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - white cs, red with slight shimmer cs, watercolour paper

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - clear embossing powder, watercolour paints, Lil Inkers stitched square die, Spellbinders tag die

Chickadee by the Light of the Moon

Audrie (aka girlgeek101) over on SCS chose a beautiful website for her Inspiration Challenge.  It features art by Rachelle Levingston.  I was inspired by this lovely watercolour:

I chose the chickadee stamp from the SU Beautiful Season set and created this card:

I like to keep practicing my watercolour wash backgrounds (still not really happy with them but I'll keep trying).

I stamped and watercoloured the chickadee image, then masked over it for the moon. I did the watercolour wash background, trying to get it like the inspiration. I added some salt to the right hand side but I think my paint was too dry as I didn't get much effect from it.

When the background was dry, I stamped the sentiment and splattered a bit of orange paint like the inspiration image.

I debated between a white cardbase and a red one and went with the red for more contrast. The watercoloured panel is popped up on fun foam. As a final touch, I added a bit of white gel pen to the berries and then coated them with glossy accents.

I'll keep working on my watercolouring - they do say practice makes perfect, though I'm not aiming for perfection!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Beautiful Season, Rubber Soul sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, red cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, white gel pen, Glossy Accents, fun foam, kosher salt

Inspired Masculine Card

Last week's SCS Inspiration Challenge inspired me to do another masculine Christmas card for Merry Monday.

Audrie on SCS sent us to the Art of Journalling Pinterest site for inspiration. I chose this image:

It seemed perfect for a masculine Christmas card.  Here's what I made:

I started by stamping the sentiment and heat embossing in white on watercolour paper. Then I stamped the trees in black pigment ink (both first and second generation) and heat embossed in clear. Lastly I took my versamarker and made the moon and the dots for stars and heat embossed them with black embossing powder.

I then flooded the whole piece with water and dropped in various shades of brown watercolour paint, keeping it dark around the sentiment and light around the moon.

It ended up quite warped so I stuck it down to self-adhesive fun foam - a great way to flatten out watercolour panels. I bordered with black cs.




Thanks for taking a look!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Lovely as a Tree, SU Bright and Beautiful sentiment

Ink - Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - watercolour paper, black and white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, versmarker, embossing powder (white, clear, and black), fun foam

Holly Resist

The December CAS Watercolour challenge is up and running.

I'm still in Christmas card mode so went with a favourite holly stamp.  Here's the card:

I stamped both the holly image and the small random dots from the SU Itty Bitty Background set in white, and then in my haste, I grabbed the clear embossing powder.  Having done emboss resist in the past, I've learned that white embossing powder gives a more distinct image, but I quite like the subtlety of this.  I might try exactly the same image and colours and do a comparison.

I flooded the whole panel with water and dropped a pale green over the whole thing, then went back in with pale blue and a mauve-blue just on the background to give variation.  I then took a fine pointed paintbrush and added dark green to all the holly leaves.

I mounted it on fun foam, framed with a pierced frame die, added red Stickles to the berries, and a small sentiment.

I'm also entering this in the Less is More "Emboss Resist" challenge.

Please come over and join us at CAS Watercolour with your creations using a resist technique with watercolour.  You have until December 24th to enter.  Please remember to keep to the Clean and Simple guidelines.  Loll and Bonnie have tightened them up a bit, and one of the new requirements is that the cards must include white "or open" space (no pattern).  I'm looking forward to seeing what you create!

Supplies:

Stamps - Great Impressions holly, Penny Black sentiment

Ink - ColorBox Frost White, Ranger Archival Library Green

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - clear embossing powder, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, MFT pierced frame die, red Stickles, fun foam

Merry Snowman

Merry Monday Christmas Challenge asked us for a winter activity this week.

What better than making a snowman?  Hard work for the little bird on my card:

A simple stamped and watercoloured image, with a bit of Frantage Shabby Blue embossing powder sprinkled around and heated from underneath.

The sentiment is die cut and placed right near the musical notes as if the birds were singing "Let It Snow".

Great challenge to build up the Christmas card stash!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU

Ink - Ranger Archival Black

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper, black cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Zig markers, Lil Inkers stitched rectangle die, fun foam, Frantage Shabby Blue embossing powder, Tattered Lace sentiment die

Magical Bears

It's time for another Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge.  This month it is watercolouring.

I have a set of Gansai Tambi watercolour paints and I love to colour images with them so this was a perfect challenge for me.  I chose a new stamp set I recently bought from Crafters' Companion and made this card:

After watercolouring the image, I laid some paper over the bears and ground area, and splattered with a bit of the gold watercolour paint.

I die cut with a Nesties square as I like the embossed edge it gives to the panel.  I popped it up on fun foam on my card base.

I went over the stars in the image with a glue pen and added very fine gold glitter.  Some of it clung around the stars where I hadn't added glue - I'm sure it will eventually fall off but for now it looks like stardust.

Happy Little Stampers is offering a prize for the best card, so be sure to join in!

You have until the end of the month so get a Christmas card made using watercolour!

Supplies:

Stamps - Crafters Companion

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black

Paper - white cs, watercolour paper

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, gold glitter, Quickie glue pen, Nesties square die, fun foam

A New Challenge for Flower Lovers

As well as being a card-maker, I love gardening and grow flowers in my perennial borders and in pots on my patio.  So I was thrilled when I learned that there is a new card challenge devoted to flowers - The Flower Challenge.

The first challenge is "Anything Goes".  I made this card:

I made a smooshed background (see this video by Loll Thompson on how to smoosh a background) using various pink and green Distress inks on watercolour paper, then stamped the flower in Archival ink.  I watercoloured it using the same inks.

The sentiment is one of my favourite quotes - and very appropriate for The Flower Challenge.

The challenge runs until October 26 so plenty of time to enter!

Supplies:

Stamps - Tim Holtz flower, SU Fabulous Florets leaves and sentiment

Ink - various pink and green Distress inks, Archival Jet Black

Paper - watercolour paper, cream cs

Size - A2

Accessories - fun foam (to pop the panel up)

Exciting News about a New Challenge

The wonderful duo of Loll Thompson and Bonnie Klass, creators of the CAS Mix Up challenge, have come up with a new challenge that will go live on October 1st.

The challenge will be to create a clean and simple card using watercolouring.  Each month there will be a different theme, or occasionally a different watercolour technique.

In honour of this news, I thought I'd post two watercolour cards I made in the summer but never got around to blogging.  They are variations on a technique called Vintage Watercolour that I learned from this tutorial on SCS.

I stamped the image (which is an outline stamp) in Distress Vintage Photo and then pulled some of the colour out of the Vintage Photo ink.  I put a bit of Tattered Rose (for the flowers) and Old Paper (for the leaves) on my craft sheet and added some to the inside of the image.  I did not use the Elegant Writer the way Heather did in her SCS tutorial as I wanted to keep my card just in brown tones.  With Antique Linen, I did some sponging around the edge of the panel and stamped some script and a postage mark.  And used Vintage Photo for the sentiment.  The watercoloured panel is popped up on fun foam for some dimension.

I did pretty much the same thing for the second card but used way more water so ended up with a lot of splotchiness.  I used Victorian Velvet for the flowers and Adirondack Lake Mist for the sponging and text in the background.

Watercolour is a fabulous and versatile technique so be sure to check out the new CAS Watercolour challenge and be inspired by Loll and Bonnie to join in starting on October 1st!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Elements of Style and French Foliage

Ink - Distress Vintage Photo, Victorian Velvet, Old Paper, Antique Linen, and Tattered Rose; Adirondack Lake Mist

Paper - PTI Vintage Cream cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - fun foam

Bird and Blossom for CAS Mix-up

I just can't get enough of Loll's and Bonnie's new challenge, CAS Mix-Up.  It perfectly suits my style and interests!  The March challenge is stamping, watercolouring, and your choice.

Sponging my stencil with my Distress inks is my choice of another medium this time.

 

I used a stamp I'd never inked up before. I stamped it on a scrap of watercolour paper, painted it with watercolour paints, and fussy cut it.

The background is a Tim Holtz stencil, sponged with pink and green Distress inks. It's popped up on the card base with fun foam and the nest is popped up on the background with pieces of foam tape. 

You've got until March 24th if you want to join in with the CAS Mix-Up challenge.

I also did the card for this week's SCS CAS challenge - "Spring Critters".

 

Stamps: B-Line Designs bird, PTI sentiment

Paper: white cs, watercolour cs

Paper Size: 5.25" square

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Peeled Paint and Spun Sugar

Accessories: Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, foam tape, fun foam, Tim Holtz blossom stencil

A Fabulous New Challenge!!

For those of you who like to make mostly CAS cards but also want to dabble in mixed media, my good friends Loll Thompson and Bonnie Klass have come up with a great new challenge called CAS Mix Up.  And they've invited me to be their first Featured Designer - I am so honoured!

The March challenge is "stamping + watercolouring + your choice of one other".

On the challenge parameters, there is a great list of the possibilities for the "your choice".  I saw burlap on the list and thought it was a great opportunity to use a piece of cream burlap I bought recently as it keeps the border very CAS.  Here's my card:

My focal image is also very CAS.  I started by doing a watercolour wash for the background.  As it dried, the green bled upwards into the blue, giving a lovely grassy effect.  Perfect for my bird perched on some taller stalks of grass!

I stamped the bird / grass image in green on the watercolour background.  And, because I didn't want the bird to be green, I stamped the image twice in brown on a scrap of watercolour paper.  Working with the two brown images, I cut one of the birds out without colouring it, then watercoloured the other brown bird in shades of brown and cut it out.  And glued the two brown birds on top of the one stamped in green on the background to give it some dimension.

I used my stitched rectangles to die cut the panel.   Watercolour washes often warp the paper so I glued a second rectangle of heavyweight cs to the back of it to flatten it out.  I popped it up with some foam tape.

I'm so excited about this challenge as I think it will help people start to bring in a bit more mixed media to their CAS cards.  The challenge runs until March 24th so there's lots of time to join in!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Simply Sketched

Ink - Ranger Archival Library Green, Ranger Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil

Paper - PTI Vintage Cream cs, watercolour paper

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, cream burlap, Lil Inkers stitched rectangle die, foam tape

Happy Anniversary to a Beloved Aunt and Uncle

 

My favourite uncle and his wife are celebrating their 60th anniversary this month.  I really wish I could be at the celebration but they live in England and a trip is just not in the budget this year.

I made this card for two of the Dare to Get Dirty challenges over at Splitcoast Stampers.  We're supposed to keep the details of the challenges to ourselves as they are for Fan Club members only.  But here are the links if you're a member and want to play:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/dare-get-dirty-f150/dtgd15justwritedesigns-chat-thread-t601783.html

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/dare-get-dirty-f150/dtgd15cherylquilts-chat-thread-t601862.html#post21039773

Supplies:

Stamps: SU Fabulous Florets, PTI sentiment

Paper: white and pink cs

Paper Size: A2

Ink: ColorBox White, Memento Tuxedo Black and Cottage Ivy

Accessories: white embossing powder, watercolour paints, Lil Inker stitched rectangle