Inspired by {Colossal Shop }

 This week Denise is sharing the Colossal site and pinterest boards and this very nearly stumped me as I have a hard time with really graphic lines I guess, which is funny as I build my cards in a pretty linear way most of the time. but, I came across this red french knot textured ( I am not sure what it is supposed to be) but, I liked how the red dots "Popped" if you will and I had happy mail from Sweet Miss Daisy Stamps on the table and since I like red & white as a Christmas theme I decided I would just go that away using that fabric as a jump start on the theme. Because, I'd rather make something I will use rather than something that is a total CASE. 

 

I started by stamping this Santa from the Hope for All Set with some Versafine Clair Morning Mist ink on Arches cold press watercolor paper and adding a layer of Daniel Smith paints. 

 while that was drying I recently updated my palettes and moved one of the 48 ones to a smaller size and so, I am laughing at my self because, my colors are reversed. ( the greens used to be closer to the glass mat) so, I need to get the cheat sheets laminated this weekend before I spill paint on them) 

More paints, the white is Windsor & Newton Gouache straight out of the tube for texture. And then when I was dry I decided it really needed more "red & white" pops. So, keeping with the textile-ish theme I used a Penny Black zig zag die to do the cutting around the painted layer and then again on the printed holly paper. 

 I used scotch tape to put the die cut mat layer back into the drop piece and then just used the whole thing for the mat on this. The base is some SU Sage Shadow finished at A6 in real life, that holly print is from the Simple Stories 'tis the season pad. and that red & white embroidered ric rac if Vintage. The Believe diecut came out of that little milk glass tray off to the side that has scraps diecut into tags and words and such. It was painted with watercolors an then tied onto the ric rac with some natural hemp string. I am really impressed with my self that I have an almost blues Santa card here and then I had to laugh that it does not look at all like that pin that started it but, that's life and I will use it so, that makes it a win for me. That's about it for now, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Flowers & Foliage

 This week Brenda is sharing this video from Marena Art that is an abstract foliage/flower painting with fall type colors. I loved the colors in the painting so, my first thought was what do you have that is close. 

 So I started out mixing some Raw Sienna & Quincindrone Coral and got that color (left in the line) and thought that is not bad, not sure if its really what she used but, I liked it and then picked up some of the other colors in the line mostly straight with some Sepia Brown later in the painting. 

 This is a 4 1/2" square piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper with Daniel Smith watercolor paints. I thought OK its not too bad, I don't know how "abstract" it is but, I do like the colors and I kept going.

 I think I will use this for something so, I set it to the side and started a second one also cut to 4 1/2" square because, the stems are not curvy enough for this to be "pretty" to my eye, its all a little too tight together. I can see it being cut in half and becoming a couple of tags with the painting off the edges of them actually. Something in a smaller scale then this I guess.

 So I started a second one trying to get it a little more loose.

 I did add a little more paint to the crevices of this and more splatters before they became cards but, I am leaning towards fall birthdays of which I need ones for gals in October and November in my family so, I think these will work for a couple of those ladies. 

 Found this textured peach-y colored bazzill in the stash and thought its nearly the same color as the paint I mixed. ( the colors look a little more on the orange shade here but, they are really more peach in real life.)

That's about it from me, these are 5" square in real life,  The ribbons are unknown at this point. I've had them a lot of years. The sentiments are Tim Holtz cardstock stickers from the occasions sticker book and they have glue dots holding them onto the scraps I cut with his label dies from the drop pieces of the base cardstock. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

 

A Sunny Day Hug

 This week Linda is hosting the color combo challenge at SCS and she has a desert option of sunflowers...  I knew I had the Cajun craze color so I used that for the card base and just made it up as I went a long for the other two colors that I am pretty sure I have never seen before. 

 So, I cut a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper and started doodling some sunflower shaped daisy type colors loosely on it, splattered it. drug an dry nib through the leaves for veins. and I really did not like it that much the most interesting part of it to me was the center of the large flower.

So my next thought was to add a side view flower to the left to try to fill in the white space and have something there to cut the large flower out of the center maybe.

So I used every die in this blanket stitched set from Pinkfresh studios to take out some of the whole blooper looking parts of the flowers. I just might use that drop piece frame for something later. 

The base here is Cajun craze and I did cut it to A2 and then I mounted the outside frame crooked. ( it was warped) so, when I trimmed off the odd side it did get a little smaller. I fished out that sentiment ( lili of the valley) from the tray on the table and added some Vintage Photo DOX to the edges of it and an yellow brad to the top and added it with some glue dots to the corner. The center panel of blooms are up on foam tape for a little interest and all in all I think this is OK. :) If you'd like to play along this challenge can be found here at SCS, thanks for stopping by. 
 

Little Christmas Notes

 This weekend Mspork was chosen as the featured stamper at SCS and I really liked this simple holly framed card she has here. And I thought I could find things already cut and being pushed around on the table to make something.

 So, these words were die cut from Scraps using the Newton's Nook Christmas word dies and the letters are scotched taped into those holes to embed them back in as a contrast. They also have foam pop dots under them. the printed collage paper is from a Simple Stories SimpleVintage 'tis the season pad and I had ripped it out of the pad to see how those Tim Holtz paper dolls would look with it, I like it I just never did anything with it but, I happened to get some happy mail with a bottle of that Dina Wakley glossy white acrylic spray to try and when I put this paper into the spray box I have and I did shake that bottle then bend over to spray all the paint came out of the side of the sprayer. ( where it connects to twist onto the bottle) so, it must have gotten banged around in shipping although it looked perfect when I cut the clear wrap off of the bottle) so, what I did was I used the end of the sprayer nozzle tube to drop some drips on it and then I used a paint brush to add some smaller ones. I did see this dry with a shimmer to it but, it dried flat for me. I had seen it on projects in the SCS gallery where it looked 3-D so, I am guessing I will have to play with that some more to see what else it will do. otherwise its just watery acrylic paint in a defective bottle for me. Its probably easier to just add water to your regular acrylic paint but, the idea of a spray of it was a cool thing in my head when I ordered it.

I don't remember who makes that holly die, I did poke through a couple of boxes of mine to find it but, it came out of an envelope of previously cut things and so all I did to this was add the red stickles glitter glue to it to catch the light and sparkle. I want to say its either Penny Black or Memory Box that's the kind of feel it has to me I guess. I am debating about adding some Holly to the one on the left later maybe a different die cut. 

And then I used up some of the other things I have chopped up recently and did 3 little 3X3 note cards. the larger ones above are just a tad under 4" square. 

 The wrapped sentiment is I want to say an Impression Obsession stamp, the merry little Christmas is from lili of the valley and the let it snow is an die cut from Poppy stamps, the mat part of it is vellum and the little snowflake diecut has some stickles glitter glue on it as does the packages and stuff on the merry Christmas panel.

That's about it from me, what I am finding is that since I stopped doing the booth making at this time of the year I am totally enjoying making these cards again but, in smaller batches with more intent rather than "the old shut up and glue process" to mass produce. I think I will bundle some of these things up and make little gift packs of them using that sentiment from one of those SU sets that reads "Happy Gift Wrap season" but, I have not found containers I want to use for the project yet so, that would you know give me an idea of how many to make each gift knowing what fits into the container.  I have no clue how it is already Monday again, but have a good one where ever the day takes you. & thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Macy's}

 This week Kia has chosen the Macy's department store and their Pinterest boards for the inspiration site. I Started out looking at dresses thinking I would find bigger patterns to look at then say Tops and then I came across this Pink & Purple floral dress really quickly and stopped looking because, earlier this week Kia had shared this floral watercoloring tutorial where I had started this peony flower. So, I added a little more paint to that and then cut it out with scissors. After I cut it out I decided I needed more flowers to create something more like the dress, 

 So I cut an A6 Panel of Arches cold press and stamped one of the other Peonies and two of the leaf stems from that same Ellen Hutson mondo Peony set and started painting them. I had placed this in a Misti to make sure I was leaving enough space around the edges. 

 First layers of paints, I did keep the same Morning Mist ink for the bloom then switched to Memento Pistachio for the leaves. This is first layer of paints. I did want to keep it more subtle since it would be in the background. 

Started adding some colors to the background so it was not just white and then I did add some darker to the lower right corner. at this point I started thinking I will need an Anniversary card next month for hubs parents and this might work. 

 

Even though there is some purples in this, its not nearly as purple/pink as the dress so, I popped up the cut out bloom on foam dots and made the card base be a really rich deep shade of purple. 

 With the thought of having this become an Anniversary card I stamped this sentiment off on some neenah scraps for the inside from the Altenew Say it with love set and this Cherish today on a Arches scrap for the front.  I think the Cherish stamp is an old Hero Arts one that I unmounted but, this is one of those your guess is as good as mine deals. ( also possibly SU) 

 About the only time I can find lately to shoot on top of the dresser with a camera is late in the day and the sun comes right through that west facing window so, the colors are a little off here but, you get the gist of it I am guessing. 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. 

 

 

Watercoloring Hard & Soft edged color

 This week Kia is sharing this watercoloring tutorial seen here on YouTube  By Sunlit brushtrokes that is part of the tutorial the basic idea here is to do soft and hard edges on the flower petals. ( which is very cool) if you would like to see the whole painting finished there is a second video seen here and it also has links to the flower if you wanted to print and trace it. 

So the main thought in my head was, the scale of the flower she is painting is not going to fit on a card or a tag so, just go grab a flower stamp with some open space in the petals to try it. So, I started out with this PSX botanical Hibiscus because, it had some open space on the petals and a stamen to do shadows under.

as a side note, I normally start my painting on Saturday for this challenge. and so, this last saturday we got in the truck bright and early like normal, we have a standing go out to breakfast date and then grocery shop. but, this last weekend we did make the drive to an Best buy and Costco and a mall & Barnes & Nobels book store these are about 80 miles from our house so we were gone all day. And what I got was a TV bracket that allows a little TV in the hobby room to be seen from where I am standing to paint. Which turns out to be a better visual than a 15" laptop screen for sure.  

Anyways, that is some cold press Arches wc paper and just what ever paints were left on palettes from last time around. It was stamped with some Versafine Clair Morning Mist ink, which may have been too dark to do the fading of the petals on the edges. at least when you do sketch with a soluble pencil it fades. 

The first layers of paints I did add some yellow to the leaves and the petals and tried for some shadows under that stamen. 

I did try to deepen the shadow areas of the flowers and leaves by this point and I did add some of the purple pink color to the leaves.

At this point I had  already skipped ahead to the second video and started watching it before I had ever started this flower so, I had forgotten how it started. the second video adds color to the background around the bloom and I decided that there was just too much detail on this stamp to show off the color flow effect. 

 So, I grabbed an Ellen Hutson Mondo Peony stamp to try it again, and this time around I actually remembered to do the center as Yellow as the first color down. and it did spread thinly to the out skirts of the bloom.

 I did add layers of paint to some of the places I thought there would be shadows and used a damp brush to smooth them out a little. 

Another layer of paints. Tried adding some to the center including some "shadows" under the stamens.

 

More paint added here, its not a dramatic change between shots but, I am seeing it deepen and I am like struggling with this as I like how the yellow peeks through the petals but, I am also thinking this is not quite right for a Peony. so, I started looking at some of my mug shots from my yard of plants.

And when I look at these I see the darkest pinks in the center shadow places. so, Looking at my stamped flower I am thinking all the shadowing I did is in the wrong places ha ha. So out came the paints.

I am thinking this having the darkest color at the center is better but, I seem to have the shadows wrong, this is almost as bad as trying to color folds into people clothing. (that is another thing that I tend to put the shadow on the wrong place) Now, that I have shown you the pitfalls of painting your stamped images, this is where things stand at the moment.  

They are pretty and I probably will do something with them but, I am running out of time to actually get something ready to post for tonight and I may end up sticking this photo above into the gallery. And I may add more paint to them, the paint is drying on the palette as I try to switch back and forth between brushes so, its slow going. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Frontgate}

 This week Julie has chosen the Frontgate site for the Inspiration challenge destination and I came across this Santa Gift Sack pin  on their pinterest boards and I of course was drawn right in by those colors and the theme. And I didn't do anything right away about that but, I let it sit for a while and that whole time I had this old Santa's list stamp from Azadi Earles on the table and knowing that and that I wanted to do something with it, I decided to use it and just morph these tags into what I wanted. So the sack shot was more of a Inspired by Jump start rather than a CASE piece. 

Earlier in the week I had attempted to clean up some of my scraps pile by die cutting more little words and such to tie onto projects and so, 

The Believe diecut words on these tags came out of that little milk glass tray that pretty much stays there with bits and pieces in it, which is why I tend to forget the MFG info. sometimes they sit there a long time, but, I do remember the one that is tied onto the tag on the left is from Impression Obsession.

The one on the right I want to say is an UK die and I am drawing a blank off the top of my head but, maybe Sue Wilson? Yep, Creative Expressions. The tag and its folded over re-inforcer are from the IO Stitched tag set. I cut those from some SU riding hood red and some dotted scrap of printed paper. The Santa lists were stamped on some just plain white cardstock ( which was too white for me) so, I added layers of Daniel Smith watercolors to them, cut them out with scissors, inked the edges with some DOX vintage photo ink and then added stickles glitter glue over the red berries. I kept the jingle bells and tied those onto the ribbons with some hemp string. The backs of these are plain right now but, I was thinking that the space on the "List" would work for writing a name on. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.  That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 

Dirty Dozen August 2025 Christmas

 Happy August :) This was done using the Dirty Dozen August prompt to jump start this shaker card. I recently played along with the Tim Holtz & Simon Says Stamp Christmas in July class doing collage things and so, since I have a lot of those bits and pieces of papers, layers, chipboards. Not only Tim Holtz but, also some from Simple Stories and others. And I'd like to make a dent in using it up. With that thought in the back of my head it was pretty easy to turn this Chipboard window into a Shaker card. the inside of the shaker is also some of that new "Snowflake" mix that came in the class kit from Ranger. ( its Mica flakes, glitter, rock candy maybe other things mix ) It is very sparkly in person. 

 I am planning to hand deliver this so, the thickness of the card is not a factor here. I do have a layer of the Simon Says Stamp foam tape behind that window pane to give it wiggle room to shake. The let it snow below her feet is also printed chipboard but, not high up as the window frame. The woodgrain printed paper here is from Impression Obsession, so it has a little gloss to it the same way the paperdoll and the printed tree layer do. I did tint that paperdoll with some of the Tim Holtz crayons and the stickers on her hands are from last years Christmas sticker pad. The layers of printed paper that looks collage-y in the top left corner are from the Simple Stories simple vintage fresh snow ephemera package. The Dec 25 red block is also from one of the TH packages. The printed snowflaked edge acetate inside the window frame on the top was in one of the baseboard packs with the chipboard frames and then I just used some plain (thick) acetate from Crafters Companion to contain the shaking bits on the back side. That snow flaked edged one was not quite long enough to go across the width of the frame so, it is off set to the left and then I used the paperdoll girls body to cover over the exposed right side. 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. 

Watercoloring Mistletoe

 Hello & Welcome, its my turn to host the watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week. And a while back I had picked up some printed watercoloring books from this artist without knowing that she has a YouTube channel. So, I was tickled to find that and share her art with you all. I decided on this (she says simple) painting of Mistletoe going with that whole Christmas in July theme and It is a little long (30 minutes) and ends with a bit of Mixed Media. ( she adds silver leafing to the paper around the painting at the end before it becomes a card) that is totally optional. You can find this video here on YouTube called "How to paint a water Colour Christmas card with Billy Showell". 

The first bunch of rubber stamps I seriously started collecting were botanical ones from PSX and so, the idea of having the skills to color these is my incentive to learning I guess. and with that thought in the back of my head, my next thought I had was. I have never seen live Mistletoe in person. and it is July here. so, the first thing I did was I dug out some old Impression Obsession Mistletoe stamps and I stamped them on some scraps of Arches hot press watercolor paper (smooth) with Versafine morning mist ink to try and figure out the colors of green paint mixes. 

 I decided the colors were not bad ( going off what I remembered from her video) and I set them aside to dry. I was pretty intimidated about the whole draw a Mistletoe sprig without having a piece to look at and I had also been working on the Dirty Dozen August Sample and I had some boxes of chipboard and Emphera Christmas pieces on the edge of the table and I knew I had seen some mistletoe in there so, I grabbed this one out of the Simple Stories simple vintage fresh snow ephemera package and used it to give me an idea of where to sketch. 

 

This is some Arches cold press water color paper and I did use a water soluble pencil for this. 

So I added a layer of paint to the leaves trying to squint at it and decided if the colors would work and I had by this point totally forgotten about dragging a damp brush through them to get those reverse veins.

 

I did remember that one of those last steps for the leaves (but I did not remember it was a last step) was to flatten your brush and add texture, so I had jumped ahead and done that ha ha. its not that bad and I did keep adding paint to this. 

 This was me trying to get that subtle color on the largest berry in the cluster.

 I did end up adding more paint to the other two berries as well. 

 So the dots went onto the berries and a little more paint along the edges of the leaves. I did not try to do anything fancy with curls and shadows on them but, was trying for a little more definition I guess. 

 I did add a touch of Quin Gold to those berries here and then a little more shadows but, I think I am mostly done tossing paint on this and trying to decided how I want to finish it out as a card or something. I was thinking maybe a tag before I started and so that had me looking at those scrap pieces I stamped off and they did turn into little tags. 

 

The card on the left is 3" square and the ho ho ho is a Tim Holtz sticker. the smaller mistletoe was diecut with a circle stitched die from IO and the edges were inked with some Iced Spruce distress ink. I don't remember the MFG info of the splattered scalloped tag but, the square kraft one with the metal edge was premade like that. The red hemp string is I want to say Lawn Fawn and those smaller Mistletoe have crystal stickles glitter glue on the berries rather than paint. 

 I do know without looking I do not own silver gold leafing sheets. I do have some mixed color pots of gold leafing flakes but, I thought that would be too distracting for this little botanical sprig so, I decided to dig out the box of frame dies and liked the curves on this Mama Elephant Flourish Frame and it was big enough for the sprig so, I cut one with some grey velvet paper and I thought the color was eh, too gray. so, I seen this shimmery DCWV gold-ish silvery grey color paper in the file of special papers and cut one of those. that seemed to pick up the yellow tints to the paint better to my eye and I did end up cutting two more of the frame and I inked the edges of those ( it was not smooth cream paper ) with some iced spruce distress ink. to give it some stability and a little depth on the card front. Oh, and those are the 3 round #4 brushes I have two of them have been used over the years a lot and the third ( the one with a sharper tip) was new for this project. what I found was only one of them I could flatten the bristles to get that jagged looking edge for dry brushing on some texture over the leaves. And I did see that I do have brushes with a sharp tip, I did not really think I did on my round brushes but, I do have one Princeton brush that says it is a "long round" but, its like an 8 or a 10 maybe so, I did not try it. 

After I layered the gold tinted silver frame over the painting I just used some scissors to cut off the right side of the paper. (behind the frame) its glued to the frame and then the layers are under that. The Merry Christmas was stamped and diecut some time ago and came out of the tray of such things on the table, the edges also received some iced spruce and some foam dots to keep it level where it hangs off the frame. The printed paper here is from the Tim Holtz pad called Paper stash Christmas Noel from 2020. The base here is some 6" Textured Bazzill in a grey shade. I am pretty tickled with this and I will probably be watching more of her videos as I feel like even though I did not get all the steps I did get something I am pleased with the end result. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Inspired by { A decorated flowerpot}

 This week Amy is sharing a pinterest board with a collection with decorated flower pot photos. And I came across this one with this fun chicken face fairly quickly and stopped poking around because, I also received an order from Unity Stamps not so long ago with several new chicken stamp sets and a few other critters. 

So, I started  by stamping this chicken from the Clucks & Chaos set with some versafine ink on Arches cold press paper because the eyes on this stamped chick looked as shocked as the flower pot. 

I added a layer of Daniel Smith paints and walked away to let it dry. 

I did end up adding more paint to the places where I am imagining there needed to be darker for shadows and depth. The sentiment on this panel is from the Unity Stamps set called Begrudged Pissy Puppy. I did blot the sentiment before I added the foam tape to the back side of that painted panel. I did not die cut it or anything else. The wood grain printed paper is from an Crafts Consortium pad, the ribbon is really old and I know it was in a "baby" pack of ribbons from a long time ago and I want to say its Basic Grey but, it may have been Making Memories. The textured green is Bazzill and this one is 5 1/2" square in real life. 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. 
 

 

Watercoloring a quick beach scene

 This week Linda is sharing this 10 minute watercolor video seen here on YouTube by Stephen Coates.

I did watch the whole video before I started painting and I did not use a hairdryer to dry my painting so I walked away from it several times and because of that I think I forgot bits and pieces. 

So I started with some sketchy sky color, and even though I did wet that top of the Arches cold press paper, it was so hot it nearly dried instantly at the time.

 

I did do the "sand" area right after the sky and then let that dry, came back added the water/waves, and then did the land mass in the background. and then started in on the shore line. and as I took this photo I thought that shoreline looks off. 

 So I added another round of paint to the shore and a little to the landmass before I walked away again.

I added some rocks to the shore, some carrot bodied people ( whose legs almost look like they are jogging ha ha) and shadows on the sand. 

 the only thing extra in this one is some wiggle grey lines on the beach and shore and I forgot about the birds, so I may add some of those but, I keep thinking that shore needs stray grass blowing on it so, I am not seeing this one as "done" I see it as "overworked" and I don't know I will do anything with this version. I might start over again from the beginning but, it won't be tonight. If You'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.