Wild Buck

 This week the Clean and Simple challenge has an use an Wild Animal as the theme and I have so many wild animal stamps that it took me a while to decide what to do, and then knowing I always need guy cards I decided to pick one that I would not have to color as the line art is very detailed and in my head that meant it was more "clean" 

This is a Unity Stamps "The Wild Haven" image that was done with Versafine Pinecone ink on some Neenah environmental card. I used an really old Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die to trim it down and then used the same cardstock for its base. And then I started second guessing the whole thing about if it really was Clean and simple as the white space is in short supply on an A2 sized card. I did end up using some DOX scorched timber ink on the edges of the diecut panel to give it some more depth. And it was a really quick and easy card to do. So, I may just pull out some more similar types of line art and do a stack of them while the mess is out. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Lavender Farms for Dad

 So I kept adding more paint to the lavender farm painting I started last week and finished it into a Father's day card for my dad. He's a gardener so it works. 

 One thing I did every time I added paint to this was added more dots of color to the closer view of Lavender and then I added more dots of color to the flower beds around the front of the house and more color to those trees. 

 I did add more paint to the where the rows would be growing as well. 

The thing with the cell phone shots like this is it seems to wash out a little bit of the color this has. and then I do the real camera shots and I also get something not quite right where I have to tinker with the levels. The white levels. I think the actual color is somewhere between this shot and the one below as a card.

The shape of this was a little off to fit on an A7 card so I used a piece of Simon Says Stamp cream for a mat under it after letting it sit in the big shot trying to press it flat. The sentiment here is from the Clearly Besotted Message me set. I tend to like those mixed fonts ones and this set is on the smaller side so its very usable for me I guess. The base here is some Coredinations Lettuce. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well and Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a Floral Flamingo

 This week we have MariLynn for a guest hostess for the watercolor tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststamper and she has chosen this floral Flamingo from Julia Lis Art that can be seen here on YouTube. 

 So I did a simple sketch on a piece of Cold Press Arches watercolor paper and I didn't have a scale in mind when I started so, I ended up too close to the bottom and I thought OK this can be the trial one... I was not really sure what to do with the feet and so, I did consider trimming it to be more of a peek view type thing if the body turned out. 

 So I started doing some flowers with pinks and corals and orange and walked away to let it dry. The sketch was done with a water soluble pencil so, I was not worried about painting over that. 

 I ended up doing some black in the feet as well thinking there would be "toes" if they call them that. I'm not really sure. and again I walked away and just let it dry.

 So I trimmed off the excess at the top of the painted layer and then found some sparkly Stardream pink cardstock for a mat and used a Pretty Pink Posh stitched border die ( from set #4) on the edge for some interest and then used some textured Natural Royal Sundance felt cardstock for the base. The sentiment here is from the Gina K Wishing well set and it was done on some Neenah solar white some time ago. This is 5 1/2" square in real life. I cannot for the life of me remember if there is supposed to be an eye on the face or not so, I may have to go look at the video again to see what the final project looks like but, this is what I remembered so I am pretending the eye is peeking out under one of those petals haha. Okay I did not see an eye on the sample bird and I also noticed that I had filled in the space around the petals and where the tail/wing tip feathers started so, mine is a little dark in that area but, all in all its a pretty cute first try with something like this. 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. 

 

 

Father's Day

 It's coming, you know its coming every year and since my step dad does not have an online presence it's OK to post his card even though its going out in the mail this morning.

I picked up this PinkInk Mel's Angel from the Frantic Stamper retirement sale not too long ago knowing I wanted to use it for him. ( he has done both the long blond hair along with the assortment of Harley's over the years so, the hair has gone grey now and the last bike was a glittery Purple.) I did stamp this with some Nocturn (waterproof) ink and then let it sit for a few days as this is textured cold press Arches cotton paper. and this image is really big, I tend to make bigger cards so buying stamps from the UK brands works out for me for the most part but, this one did take my by surprise.

I thought about popping in a mug shot of us on this bike as I have one framed but, it was not a digital shot and photographing photos does not always work so great for me, my brain still looks through the lens of a DSLR and expects I will get what I see haha. ( these flat shots are always done with my cell phone over the table) It's probably hard to see but, there are several shades of shimmery paints in the lights and on the chrome of the bike and the sunglasses lens here. So it has some sparkle as the paper is tilted.

I found one of those loose sheets of textured cardstock in a deep shade of purple for the base and cut it to A7 and then started trimming down the image on the paper trimmer so it could fit with a sliver of the purple peeking out. There was an "make it Masculine" clean and simple challenge a couple of weeks ago at SCS and I started this with that in mind. I stamped that sentiment ( from the Unity Stamps set called wild surprises with the moose) when it came in the mail and die cut it with an Whimsy stamps Antique frame die in that set and thought OK that hair is certainly wild so, to me it fits and I think it will surprise a laugh out of him) That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 
 

 

 

Inspired by {Neiman Marcus}

 This week Kia is sharing the Neiman Marcus store & Pinterest Boards for inspiration and I came across these Pink Jimmy Choos and stopped looking. I love these, every detail about them but, I would not wear them so, they are not something I'd buy but, I like to look at shoes.  ( I am more of a rainbow of Chucks kind of a chick when I am not barefoot) 

So I started by Stamping this shoe from Limited Edition 1997 with some Versafine Baby Pink ink on some Authentique lace paper that was really cream colored. So, I smooshed some DOX Salt Water Taffy ink over that and cut it out with scissors then used a stardream stardust pen on the buckle and bottom of the heel and used some Daniel Smith watercolors in the "shadow" parts of those straps that mimic's the colors of the Paper Studio paper behind it. The mat under this is some brushed silver that sparkles and the card base is some Star Dream cardstock that also sparkles and shimmers. This is 5 1/2" square in real life. The sentiment here is from Inky Antics and was stamped directly on the Paper studio layer with some Versafine Nocturn ink. And I ended up choosing it just because, it made me chuckle. I have not decided who needs to receive this in the mail as of yet so, the inside is blank. Thanks 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 Loose Lavender Farm Scene

 Hello & Welcome here, this week Linda is sharing a video tutorial on doing a Lavender farm scene. You can see this video here on YouTube. 

I did sketch this scene real loose on some cold press Arches watercolor paper with a water soluble pencil. ( because, that is what is on the table with my brushes) and I knew seeing how wet the paper was in the video I would have to do it from memory like usual so, I did not do a lot of details with it.)

 like so

 This is my first layers of paint while it was wet and I did try to keep the house and those trees near it dry. I also had started out with a regular round brush and remembered that they used an Mop style brush and I did use mine ( my smallest DaVinci 1) and my inner control freak was screaming and it holds an enormous amount of water in that brush.. so, one of the bristles fell into the paint and I haha chased it around with a sharp poking tool on the table and left some pretty big scratches into that paint and then added more to make it look more intentional.

 So, I decided to walk away and let it dry and this is what I came back to.

So I added more paint to the "road" and the horizon foliage line and added some paint to the mountains and the house walls. and I walked away again. 

 

And this is how that dried. and I am debating about if I want to toss it and start over or just keep going but, its now time to load these to the gallery and I feel like it needs a lot more paint to work and I am not so sure I am going to be able to ignore the scratches. So, I am planning to add more to the fields on the right side when I get this wet again. 

 

I think this may take a few more days to finish as I will be driving all day for work tomorrow and I have not done that in a while.  If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by { Painted Papers }

 This week Denise is sharing this Painted Paper wall paper site for Inspiration they have Pinterest boards seen here and I laughed when I seen this pin of pale Kraft or tan Gingham. I have piles and piles of Gingham papers so, I stopped looking after that. 

And I tried too hard and made a really not pretty Baby card, and then I had one more piece of this print in this color in the Simple Stories Simple Vintage pad and I started over again with this Darcie's Bear. ( it has patches and a Band-Aid on its forehead and I thought it would work well for a feel better type card.) So I stamped the bear with some Versafine Clair Sand dune ink on some Arches cold press and used some Daniel Smith watercolors on it.

 These colors are off here, lately it seems like everything I shoot with my camera is off and this is actually a tinge more red in real life so, that is probably why its off. Red is picky to shoot digitally to me. I did cut this out with scissors and then popped it up on some foam dots over the printed Gingham paper.

 I wanted to the paper showing around the bear so, I kept it simple and used an Avery Elle die to cut it out and then stamped the Clearly Besotted Message me sentiment directly on the paper with some Acorn ink. The base here is a rich shade of Kraft that is nearly the same colors of paint as used on the bear and it's A2 in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Loose trees

 This week Suz is sharing this quick and easy video on doing very loose and wet forest scenes that can be seen here on YouTube called The Easiest way to paint watercolor trees in only 3 steps by Kristin Van Leuven. And I had recently picked up a Lighwish swatch book on Amazon (it's cotton pages) The book I started making into a swatch book years ago was some cannon? something cheap and I have given away a lot of the paint sets I had and I've only kept a few brands And so I was you know swatch swiping paint while I watched the video and I happened to have these handmade paints I found on Etsy made by Jazper Stardust a while back out at the time so, the first round of trees were done with those. (They are not smooth when dry, they have like a gritty texture to them kind of like Tim Holtz distress embossing powders is what they remind me of, that gritty texture.) ( Pretty colors though) 

I did do this on a scrap of Arches cold press watercolor paper. And I set it aside and tried it again with some Daniel Smith paints that were on a Palette here.

 

first layers of paint, it bleed everywhere so, it was kind of flat and one dimensional so, while it was damp I kept adding more pigments to it.

 I still did not get much dimension to the scene so I let them dry and eventually I did end up adding a little more paint for some shadows and on the tree trunks mainly.

 I just I am not sure what I want to do with these so, they are unfinished like this, I am thinking more trees maybe some flying birds, for sure more shadows... and so, I think the ground shadows turned out better on the one on the left. I did end up adding some DS paints over the top of the handmade paints. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.  And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

A Textured Noel

 I had a little free time yesterday afternoon while I was waiting for the paints to dry for tomorrow's sample and I also have a small wooden tray on the table that has partially started things in it, The thought process was maybe I'd finish them some time. So I started poking around and I came across this drop piece with the embossed berries and branches that had been colored and stamped on in the past. ( The original project is can be seen here) I did like how it turned out, I was surprised how long this has been "saved" to be used. It always surprises me how quickly the time is going by now.  At any rate, I did add a little more watercolor to a few leaves and more white gouache on the spots on the berries as well.

 I recently picked up a couple of "shaped edge" card dies made by Find it Trading from a little shop at the top of the state that sells on Etsy (here) and I wanted to see how it would look. This one is a deckle type edge and it does cut all the edge and score the center so the top where you fold it does not have a deckle edge. So I pulled out some DOX Vintage photo ink and did the edges of the card ( both sides) and all the edges of that previously textured card with it. And a while back I had seen someone say they diecut their word dies in multiples when they got them so they could glue them together. And that made sense to me so, I had one of those times in the way back cut this Penny Black Immense Noel die from thin Micheal's Artist loft watercolor paper and glued a couple together, so here I decided to add some green paints to it.

I did use some Simon Says Stamp foam strips to raise it up above the card panel for depth and then there was room to add the very lumpy Mullbery Poinsettia. I did daub some DOX on the stamen of it as well as it was pretty bright in this more vintage feeling card to me so, It didn't take too much time to do this and then when I photographed it I thought I need to daub some red paint onto the textured panel at the end of where the center of the E ends as it just blends so well with those leaves behind it color wise its hard to read the letter to me. This also follows along with the Dirty Dozen June Prompt for Christmas cards and so, Yay me I got a two-fer month done ha ha. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

 

June Dirty Dozen Christmas card

 Hello & Welcome back. It's that time of the month when the Dirty Dozen Christmas card prompt is revealed for everyone working to have a stash of Christmas cards done early gets released for the new month. You can read all the details here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club members at SCS.

I decided to open the drawers and just look at my Christmas stamps and pick something that had not been inked in a long time and out came this one from Stamps Happen designed by Carolyn Shores Wright. I love her bird stamps and I have almost all of them so, they fill a couple of bisley drawers in my space. 

I stamped this one on some Arches cold press paper even with all those details using some Versafine Morning Mist ink, planning to fill in any not stamped well spaces with watercolor paints. The sentiment was a little faint and not as easy to read as I was hoping so, I decided that the sentiment would probably end up in that space. 

 

These are first layers of paints, I just kept moving from space to space in the image so that the other spots had a chance to dry and the colors did not bleed. 

 I did not try to get all the things painted in the first round, this was more like adding background to the foliage and trying for some deeper shadows along the edges of the bird to help it POP over that sky and such. 

 I added more paint off and on every time I walked by this for a handful of days thinking that maybe I'd do some kind of snowfall for the rest of the space along the edges as I was painting.

And I remembered about how we had a challenge maybe last year in the Watercoloring tutorials thread where Candy Canes were painted like the way you see the colors here on this scarf where the edges are a little darker to give it a little curve and I did do that here as well.

 

I did do a few rounds of White Gouache on the snow fall spots but, they continued to dry flat as time went on so, I did eventually put some blue-ish shadows under those spaces trying to give them some depth and texture.

 And eventually I just decided to add some stickles glitter glue over those white gouache falling snow spaces. I liked the sparkle but, this also dried pretty flat. 

So I ended up adding another layer of glitter glue trying for some depth to it. 

 

And I realized if I were to put this panel into a die it would all smoosh flat being cut into a shape so, I ended up finding a thin piece of green cardstock and stacking and gluing it to it self at slightly under A7 in real life and running that through the big shot twice, first cutting the window in the center with an Memory box curved cap pinpoint die and then the second time inside a Spellbinders Evergreen folder.

I found this sentiment in the already stamped and diecut folder in the drawer. ( I think its from the Memory box line) and inked the edges of that with some Rustic Wilderness DOX and used some foam pop dots under the top half of it and just a big glue dot to connect to the wrapped ribbon. That ribbon sparkles in real life but, I have such a hard time shooting and processing red colors digitally that its a little off here. That's about it from me, I probably could have kept adding more paint to this for days but, the deadline came and I had to call it. I am pretty tickled with how this turned out. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired By {Food Network}

 It's my turn to host the Inspiration Challenge and a while back I had the "bright" idea to choose the Food Network Channel. They have a collection of Pinterest Boards here. The thought behind it was, I own lots of cake and cupcake stamps and I struggle with coloring ideas for them and my assumption was I would find lots of pretty decorated cakes to view there without really investigating this assumption and my back up plan was I also own people stamps who are wearing Chef clothing ha ha. 

So, I did get lucky and find this pin of a "Smores" cake and I loved that there was more than one shade of brown on it and I knew that I own some old Darcies "Smores" rubber stamps. So out came this little one that is H-4566 and I stamped it with some Versafine Sand Dune ink on some Arches 100% cotton cold press watercolor paper and added a little Daniel Smith paints to it.

 And I realized after it was all the way dry there were a few spots that had more water than I had seen while it was wet so, of course there was that travel out of the lines after it dried. and I decided to just let it go. It's the charm of hand crafted is the motto of the day. And then as I started to build the card with this image I realized that A I really like the color combo pink and brown as a lot of my brown papers have pink undertones and it worked well with the heart cheeks and heart on the image so, it does not really mimic the inspiration pin that much as its more of an "inspired by" rather than a CASE'd project. 

The little Smores and that dotted mat were cut with the smallest dies in the Studio Light nested frames set, That sentiment is from a very old Gina K wishing well set and was cut with some rectangle die. The base here is some two sided (tones) Uniquely Creative "Chocolate" from Australia and it was cut down to 5 1/2" in real life, that band that juts across is the drop piece. The pink and brown plaid here is from the Carta Bella Cowgirl pad. That ribbon is a really old one from Martha Stewart, ( like decades old) And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well. If You'd care to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring Lures

 This week it is my turn to host the water coloring challenge and I came across this two-fer video seen here on YouTube. by Erin Eno that has one painting with these frilly lures that I cannot tell you what kind they happen to be and that caught my eye. and the second painting in the video is a simple mountain scene. The video is a little long because of that and the actual painting does not start until after 7 minutes into it. It starts with her showing how she draws lines to center things for her cards. And it was in my mind a little too complicated for me so I decided what I liked about her lure card was that the lures were centered and different. 

 So because it was a trio of images I did decide to use a centering ruler for some small dots where the lures would "go" the cold press paper was cut to a square before the painting started so, it only had to go one direction if that makes sense. 

 So the second thing I did was doodle some lure-ish shapes with the pencil. they are not precise and I am fine with that. 

 And then I did a faint wash of some "water" for the background so the lure "feathers?" could look like they were flowing in the water. 

 This is where things got hinky in my head, because I cannot figure out what kind of lures these were supposed to be I knew the "eye" was so odd to me and yet, I found my self painting what I had remembered from the video anyways.

I did keep adding more "feathers" and a little darker colors along the edges, and those odd duck bill shaped things the eye for the line would go and it did get a little more even as it was on the card front below.

 I used a Spellbinders Perfect touch rectangle die to cut this and it got off center going through the big shot. That happens some times, at least it did not tweak and go crooked. So I inked the edges of that with some DOX Jeans ink. The printed paper here is a recent find from the Unity Stamps Take em fishing pack and the base is some textured Bazzill. The sentiment here is from the Impression Obsession kit from May of 2023 and it was done with Versafine on Neenah and cut with A Tim Holtz Stacked deckle die and inked with the same jeans ink. This is 5 1/2" square in real life and That's about it from me. I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. 

Inspired by {Moda Operandi}

 This Memorial day weekend Amy is sharing the Moda Operandi site and pinterest boards. And I came across this light colored straw cowboy hat. and I laughed and laughed. Because, I had received this Whimsy stamps Cowboy Obsession stamp set and printed paper in the mail a day before I seen that and I had made her hat that color a few hours before that... and I thought OK lets just keep it simple.

 The couple was stamped with Versafine Morning Mist ink on some cold press 100% cotton watercolor paper and painted with Daniel Smith watercolors. The sentiment from that same set of stamps was done with Pine cone ink. When the paint was dry I cut this out with a new to me die set from Craft Addiction UK called Stitched craft fusion frames. I did get mine from Color me Nordic here. I thought the stitching details could lend itself to western style. And I then cut it out with some Kraft cardstock and it really showed off the stitches really well but, I wanted to use some of this scenic paper. ( every sheet in this pack is gorgeous) So, I cut one piece with a large die and then cut out a smaller section from its center. And I put the second frame up on foam pop dots) and then layered these over the watercolor/kraft layers. The base layer here is some Bazzill Quick Sand textured cardstock and this is 6" square in real life. I did try to give him some of that five o' clock shadow and then removed most the grey from the skin and went back over the top with the same shades of skin tone I blended for her. I think there is a little bit of contrast between their faces. I did still struggle with where to put the shadows on the folds of their shirts but, I am pretty tickled with how this turned out all in all. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. 

Watercoloring Loose Anemone's

 This week Linda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube that is a loose pitcher of Anemone flowers. When I turned on the Closed captioning it wrote the words in I think it may have been Spanish so, I turned it off and this was done from memory from just watching it. I am sure I did not use the same colors and I probably skipped around the steps out of order but, I think I got the gist of it. 

All my splatters were tiny, just really tiny so, I kept going up in brush size. I did some splatter-y loose blobs of what I was hoping would become the backgrounds of the flowers on the edges leaving some space for white-ish blooms in the center. 

 So I added in some leaf suggestions along with a wonky tilted pitcher top ha and another layer of paint to the flowers.

another layer of paint pretty much every where. 

 

I started adding darker rings to the centers of the blooms and more splatters and more leafy background suggested things so it wasn't so clean on the edges. 

 More splatters and paints. 

 and even darker paints to the centers of the blooms. the shapes of the leaves overlapping the rim of the pitcher bug me every time so, they get more paint every round as well. 

 I kept adding shadows to the leaves but, they just look harsh and too there not loose to me so, I just kept adding more. ha and along the edges of the pitcher as well. the shadows are deeper. 

I tried a white gel pen, actually I tried 3 different ones. They didn't do much to my eye so I used some white gouache straight out of the tube by this point. And I am thinking about trying to press this flatter in the bigshot while I am at work today while I still ponder some words for finishing it off. I really do not have any floral cards on my needed list at the moment so, its a mental road block.  So When I came home I pulled it out of the bigshot and it was slightly flatter but, not a completely flat painting. and I don't have an idea about what to do with it so, this is where I stopped.

 That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well And If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.