Watercoloring a Simple landscape

 This week Kia is sharing this video tutorial that starts out with purple skies by Emma Jane Lefebvre called Basic watercolour landscape tutorial - Anyone can do this... and I spend a little while trying to mix a pale purple for the sky and or just messing with my purple paints in general of which there are not many, added pinks to them, tried adding blues. One curious thing she mentions to use the least amount of paint possible with a large wet brush so, when I tried that you cannot see the purple in the skies anymore at this point. 

 I also have a hard time with pastel colors in general I think they are hard to see I guess. So, I  did end up adding in more natural colors and greys to this as I went a long.

 By this point, I could not really remember how she did her tree line and mine started to look like a muddy mess to me so, I got it wet, wiped it off and tried it again. ( more than once) and so eventually I just stopped messing with the tree line. I am not entirely sure what colors she used for her frozen marsh parts and I wish I knew because, that was my favorite color in her painting but, I have a feeling it may not be a color that is in the DS line. I did also spend some time wetting and swatching the paint palettes I started with and some are entirely too bright for my tastes and I have boxed all those paints up to give them away. I am going through a "life is too short to mess with things that do not bring you joy" type thoughts so, It's OK because, I do enjoy my DS paints and no, I do not have all the colors and I can generally find something to mix that will work "good enough" with what I want to do.

 I look at this and think "oh, it needs" like crane birds walking through the bottom half and maybe  more color to the freeze dried grass / weed stems and so, I've decided to leave it as is because, if I keep tossing paint at it, its not going to look much like the "simple" fun video she had stated it would be. I wish I had used more paint in the sky, its pretty much not there for my eye as I look at this the more it dries. 

 

And the not there sky bugged me enough that I dried brushed more purples and pinks to that sky. Which then makes me want to add more color to the frozen marsh area so, I am going to walk away from this now for real. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this video here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Melted Heart

 There is an encore of the colors thrown down a week ago at SCS this week. (Navy, White & Silver) and I had seen that on the day the last watercolor challenge went live I think and I had a little pile of these things (papers) on the table and I started pushing them around thinking to do something "different" than the snowflake card I had done the week before. But, I didn't really get anywhere with it besides liking the papers I piled up. 

And then on Thursday the challenge for the "ways to use it" was do use something new or do something as a new beginning type of a theme. And so, I have all these dies, that are new that were calculated impulse buys and or things I shipped home to me from my mama studio. And these tag dies with the scalloped stitched edges are new ones from Unity Stamps that I bought when they had their pre black friday sale? something like that. The snowman tag is actually printed paper, and I have all these pads of papers with little word blocks or art on them and I did over the last couple of months take a few of those sheets out of the pads and cut them up thinking to use them the way they were printed as I like the art on them and I had the idea "easy project" type of a thought. So, it was in one of those shallow containers on the table and I could see the face of him peeking out and thought OK you could do a snowman card. And then with the reds and greens on him I figured that was too many other colors to squeak it by for a color challenge but, I do like how this turned out. The small sentiments on the silver tags are really old ones from Stampendous cut out with scissors and inked on the edges with some DOX scorched timber. The nail head in the tag hole of the snowman printed paper is actually pretty flat and the then two small brushed silver tags have actual mini brads in their centers. The largest printed paper tag has just a knot of sheer silver ribbon through it. I did dove tail cut the ends of the ribbons for drama but, its a fragile ribbon and it is already starting to shred from that. The domed piece is just a scrap of cheap watercolor paper that has a scrap of Navy linen cardstock wrapped around it for interest. And I thought when all the pieces were arranged that is a sort of "new" design for me, I tend to do a large image and fairly flat so, the whole lots of bits and pieces is interesting I guess. I am also thinking that this could go as either a "love" card or a Thank you card with the whole melted heart sentiment. ( that is a Spellbinders letterpress one that has a die that came with the stamps.) That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by { Urban wear outsiders }

 This week Julie is sharing the Urban Wear Outsiders site and I came across this Gingerbread "Ugly" sweater and I knew I had some "gingerbread papers" from a recollections pad this season at Micheals and then I seen that I had this Tim Holtz sweater I had stamped and colored a bit a while back on the table in the container I have holding such things in hopes of seeing them means using them ha ha. So, I added some white gel pen to the sweater and some DOX scorched timber on the edges. 

I flipped over the gingerbread paper to pick up the sweater texture and cut it with a Scalloped die from the Ton and inked the edges of that with the same Scorched Timber, I stamped the sentiment ( Woodware Christmas Distressed Labels set) with Pinecone Versafine ink onto a scrap of green that picked up the colors in the sweater and inked its edges with same ink.

 I found a piece of Kraft colored cardstock to use as the base and ran the top half of it through the big shot with a Darice embossing folder with some scallops and framing that is kinda "Doodled" looking. And I decided this was enough, that doing it as CAS was interesting. That's about it from me, it made for Christmas card #2 created since the New Year yesterday afternoon and puts me at halfway through what I signed up for at SCS with a goal of doing 4 Christmas cards a month. I figure 1/4 of that goal will be used up on the Dirty Dozen Christmas card samples so, really I only need 3 different things, and I tend to lean towards Christmas card when doing challenges already so, I think it will be OK. and if not, there really are no stamping police. This is just a stash building thing. That's about it from me, If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Dirty Dozen January 2026 Christmas Begins

 It's that time again, the first of the month and the first of the new year, so the samples for the Dirty Dozen Christmas card prompt go live tonight and this is what I did for mine.

 I originally had the idea I would find a stamp ( of which I probably have more than one that could work) of a line of hanging baubles that I could do a CAS card with on the front. And then I started digging in my printed papers and found this really old one from Basic Grey and thought, stop hoarding this and use it. So, I found this Reverse Confetti die and cut two of them from some cheap strathmore watercolor paper and stacked them for some depth. 

And you know I collect tag dies, this one came to me from Color Me Nordic by Gummiapan just called Merry Christmas tag. It cuts the words into the tag and I thought after the fact while the glue was drying that maybe I should add some ink to this to make it more legible but, it is more obvious in real life. The tag is up on foam pop dots here.

I hardly ever make side opening cards and so it surprised me that I did. The base here is some shimmery Stardream opal card and then there is Stickles glitter glue in a see-thru shimmer in the centers of a few of these baubles and also used to hold on a trio of crystal colored sequins as well. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this prompt here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club Members. Thanks for stopping by & Happy New Year! 

Watercoloring a Winter Landscape

 Hello & Welcome here, It's the last week of Watercolor challenge tutorials at Splitcoaststampers and I am hosting. At the end of last September when I came across this painting from Nia Nia Ni  On YouTube called 3 Colours to paint a simple winter watercolor: Full watercolor tutorial video. I remember thinking that would work really well for a winter Guy Birthday card but, I actually like landscape scenes so, I really think you could do anything with this during the season. She does use 3 colors of paints for it, Yellow Ochre, Indigo & Burnt Umber. I do not own burnt umber as a color so I tried Raw Umber, then added in some Van Dyck Brown. This paper is some Arches cold press watercolor and I did cut it to be slightly under A7 so that I could still have the white edge and get it to fit on an A7 sized card base.

 I received this new paint palette from my son & his Girl for Christmas and I have not put that many paints into it yet but, Indigo was one of them so, I decided to try it out since there is the mixing space in between the paint wells. I just did this from memory from watching the video once. I know its not the same, but so far its not too bad. 

 I did deepen some of the shadows, added more to the under the where the sun should be area, A few closer more shadowed trees to the distance kind of a thing.

 At this point I had added some Quin. Gold & Burnt orange to the mixes and I did get some more "green" and I added some "bushes" to the distance on the horizon, as well as more leaves to the bare tree branches and a few more taller branches on the tree on the left as they are so similar in height. added some texture to the snow in the what is it meadow part of the scene? As I was painting this, I need a Sympathy card and I had the colors so somber I started second guessing the idea of using this for that, and that is when I brought in the brighter yellows and orange trying to give it more a real feel to me I guess you could say.  Because, Hubs knows I started this for his Dad. And So. 

 The sentiment here is from Woodware Stamps with some Versafine Clair Nocturn and then I let it sit over 24 hours before I used a waffle flower A7 die on the panel. The printed paper under it is from Basic Grey and the cardbase is some SU taupe. The inside sentiment is from an Altenew Beautiful Inside set and it is going to hubs dad at the end of January. That's about it from me, If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by. 

  

A Sympathy Card

 June lost her mama last Friday night and I hemmed and hawed about what to do for a sympathy card all weekend long, and then Last night I finally got an idea of what to start with using maybe a wax seal as she had given me a kit for doing some Christmas seals with red wax beads and one of those burner stand things for holding a candle and 3 brass stampers from Micheal's for Christmas this year so, I got out all the wax seal stamps I own thinking I could do a white rose. Sounded good in my head but, I did not own any flower stamps for that except the poinsettia she had given me and no white wax at all so,

I spent some time Monday night messing with the colors of beads I had and some "with love" seals that are more of a typewriter font to them and I came up with one that did not look too busy with the papers I had picked out for the card. ( the base is Gina K cream, the stripe is some Bo Bunny "unforgettable stripe"

The textured black velvet print is from Kaiser craft. I had originally cut a square of it and then ended up using the drop piece with a die cut from the Spellbinders Sealed twine die cut twice from some textured black bazzill cardstock. 

 

I ended up using the square velvet part on the inside of the card with a sentiment from Altenew and cut that with an Paper rose die. The flower/leaf stem on the front is a Tim Holtz die called Wildflower stems #1 and I used some strathmore watercolor paper to cut it out with. 

 I don't know how well that seal reads but, I did try using some first Copper paint pen on the lettering and then went over the top with a gold paint pen. I did hand deliver this and I did use some score tape to attach the seal to the paper seal part of the die cuts and I have my fingers crossed that it has not fallen apart since I gave it to her today. I've read that a lot of glues do not stick to the wax seal, and I thought it was better to try practicing it on some glass mat to see before just doing it on the card front. It's been years since I have tried this and all my old ones have very old fashioned candles to hold and drip in place and I used to do it on little piece of cardstock so I had something to stick the glue to and apply it to projects after the fact like an embellishment.  I did feel that trying it with the little bowl and wax beads was faster and easier to me than holding a dripping candle. I've seen that some people try doing these with hot glue guns and colored glue that way and I may actually have some colored glue sticks but, I think I will try doing some more of these for future use soon. I think the Christmas ones I have would be super cute on gift tags actually. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by.