Monthly Archives: April 2015

Watercolouring A Happy Thing

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I think I mentioned that I recently got hooked on watercolouring and I did a fair bit of it at the crop last weekend. I initially thought that the bird in the A Happy Thing set was a kingfisher but reading Brian King’s site I found that he’d done his research and found that it’s a bee eater. That makes a whole lot more sense since the beak was too short for a kingfisher. The bee eater is an almost unbelievably brightly coloured bird and comes in quite a few colour ways. I watercolored with google images at my side!

Stampin' Up! A Happy Thing

I cut a quarter sheet of the watercolour paper and stamped the adorable bird in stazon black. I have found that I’m more successful watercolouring (and I’m definitely a novice, but it’s so much fun, you have to try it) if there is not much water in the aquapainter or everything gets a bit too soggy and my colours run out of control. I started with pacific point, watering it down quite a bit and then moved onto the pumpkin pie. I then used old olive for the head and upper chest, blending the colour into some of the pacific point lower down in an attempt to mimic real life. I used some memento black to darken the beak, tail and stripe around the eye and on the neck. Once I’d finished this, it was crying out for the sentiment that comes with the set, so I inked that up in memento black as well. I confess that I’m not fond of the stazon black and only use it when strictly necessary due to needing to use a different cleaner. I mounted the watercolour paper on a skinny black mat using fast fuse since the paper is much more sturdy than our regular card stock. This then went on an old olive base. I lined the envelope using the now retiring backgrounds DSP. I can only hope that there will be new backgrounds DSP in different patterns because they are so wonderful for envelope lining.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Finally the Painted Petals stripes

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I’ve been wanting to use the three lines in the painted petals set for a while but they just wouldn’t fit onto a card. Yesterday afternoon, I finally realised what I wanted to do with them. I wanted the sentiment front and centre and very obvious – I have a couple of people that need such cards to be sent to them at the moment.

Stampin' Up! Painted Petals and Lovely Amazing You

I first stamped the sentiment from the Lovely Amazing You set in the middle of the very vanilla card using blackberry bliss ink which I stamped off once onto scrap paper. Then I stamped the lines from the Stampin’ Up! Painted Petals set in lost lagoon about midway between the edge of the card and the sentiment. One of my favourite tools then came into play – my ruler – so that I could ensure that the second set of lines were at the same distance.

I then decided that the card needed a lost lagoon mat which necessitated some trimming of the very vanilla piece. The stampin’ up! trimmer is great at trimming off little strips. After adhering the very vanilla to the lost lagoon mat I glued it to a blackberry bliss base. A nice easy CAS (clean and simple) card.

Painted Petals and Blooms

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This is another of the cards made with a single sheet of the Painted Blooms 12 by 12 DSP. It’s one picture on the paper rather than a repeated pattern so by cutting it into 6 pieces you get half a dozen matching but different cards. Another one is here.

Stampin' Up! Painted Blooms and Painted Petals

This is from the upper part of the paper and this time I stamped the sentiment from Painted Petals directly onto the paper rather than framing it in the background colour. It’s stamped in rose red. Then it’s a simple matter of mounting the DSP onto a rose red card base. It really can’t get much easier to make a card! I lined the envelope in the backgrounds DSP in rose red from the regals family. I can’t believe that the backgrounds are on the retired list but I’m assuming that there will be a replacement.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Lovely Amazing You

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It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut and the same is true of making cards. I haven’t used hello honey in ages and I have no idea why, I really like it. I’m sure that I “ought” to focus on using up the in colours that are about to retire along with the retiring DSP but what do you know. Those rebellious tendencies are at work again.

Stampin' Up! Thoughts and Prayers & Lovely Amazing You

This was made at the end of the crop weekend when I challenged myself to make a card without DSP (that’s a novel twist seeing as I rarely use it), without watercolouring and to use my new set, Lovely Amazing You. I’m really fond of this tree from Thoughts and Prayers and it seems to create just the right space to put a sentiment.

I stamped the tree on very vanilla in hello honey and then toyed with using the “love you more than chocolate” sentiment but although it’s a great sentiment, I’m not sure that I’m going to need it very often… How many people do you love more than chocolate? Anyway, I decided to use the good wishes one and since blackberry bliss was already out, I used that, stamping it off once first. I matted the very vanilla with blackberry bliss and mounted that on a base of hello honey. The envelope is lined with the backgrounds DSP in hello honey.

Happily neither of these stamp sets is on the retired list that Stampin’ Up! announced today. The backgrounds DSP in all families IS there though which is rather disappointing – hopefully there are new ones coming out with different patterns. They are so useful for lining envelopes. Once they are sold out, they are gone, so go shopping asap if you want them or other items, many of which are discounted.

 

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Moon lake Canadian goose

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Here’s another card from the weekend – this one with watercolouring – it’s the same set as Saturday’s card but it’s quite different. I used a quarter sheet of the 6″ by 9″ water colour paper stamping the image from the Stampin’ Up! Moon Lake set in stazon black. I’m not especially fond of this black since it needs a special stamp cleaner but the water based black isn’t going to work too well with all the water!

Stampin' Up! Moon Lake

Whilst giving the black a few moments to dry, I pulled out the stamp pads that I needed for the colouring – crumb cake, marina mist and wild wasabi. I also got out my refill for the memento black ink pad. After squishing the pads to get some ink on the lids, I started by colouring the goose in crumb cake using an aquapainter. I added extra colour onto the top of the goose’ back because (according to the picture I looked at on google) that’s how the goose is. I really like the aquapainter, it’s handy having the water in the brush although I don’t like there to be much at all or I end up with too much water on the paper.

I then coloured the tops of the reeds also using the crumb cake before moving onto the stems using wild wasabi. After that I used the marina mist for the water – I found that by going over the same areas multiple times I got a non uniform look which is what I wanted for the water. All that was left was to put a drop of the memento black refill onto a block and use that to colour in the neck and face of the goose.

I tried a number of different card bases and mats but it was a skinny black mat that really set it off along with a marina blue card base.

See you tomorrow,

Liz