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. 

 

Inspired by {Kartoti Designs}

 This week Denise is sharing the Kartoti Designs site and pinterest boards collection and I came across this pin with these framed black and white sketches. And I thought that could make a cool ( fast easy card) ( its been a rollercoasterofaweek) So, I had originally decided to use Christmas flowers and knock out a Christmas card but, most of my Christmas flower stamps are large. for the most part I seem to have not many "sketchy" type stamps and the ones that I do have are very large geared more towards watercoloring.

But, I found this stamp from the Club Scrap Girlfriends set and thought OK and all those squares and blooms are all one stamp and thought ok back to the quick and easy idea... This is stamped with some Versafine clair nocturn ink on Neenah solar white 110# cardstock in a Misti so that I could ink the stamps several times for best coverage since this is a one layer card I wanted that ink to be bold and there.

 The sentiment here is from the Stampin' Up! Thoughtful branches set. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well.  This card is finished out at A2 in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a gumtree bloom

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube to do a gumtree flower in watercolor. I have never in my wildest dreams imagined such an unusual bloom. At first glance my first thought was sea anemone. So I sketched a kinda top to the bloom with some hanging leaves.

 On a piece of cold press arches cotton watercolor paper. 

I added a first layer of paints and walked away.

 

At work today I printed off a screen shot of the video bloom/pod/leaves and 3 different pins This one 

And this one 

and this one as well. 

I seen on Pinterest with these flowers. I could not make up my mind when I googled them last weekend which colors to choose and finally today decided on the pinkish ones. (they also come in a white and a red) The things that interested me most about the photos besides the color idea was how the leaves drape, shape type thing. I did skip the pod in this painting as it did not interest me much. 

 I spent a bunch of time mixing that color for the ends of the pink petals? its 3 or 4 colors and it dried flat and invisible.

So I mixed up a yellow tinted one and went right over the top of the dried light color. thinking it could be a shadow under it all.

 

And I continued to add more to where I thought there should be shadows and ultimately ended up doing just plain white dots two more times in those spaces.

 At this point I decided it was starting to look kinda muddy and over worked so, I let that dry and then added some shadows under things thinking that maybe the whites would pop later when dry because of that.

 So this is where I stopped with this. I am not sure I would do anything with this so, I like the colors of it and it was an interesting thing to try. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

A Fancy Scene fold card

 So, this has been an off again and on again thing this weekend. Early on Saturday AM before I ran out the door I seen  This Amazingly beautiful this card on SCS by Suz  for the May Dirty Dozen prompt that uses this fancy fold that has a tutorial on YouTube seen here. And because Suz's card is so gorgeous I went down that rabbit hole and watched the video and then attempted this fold. 

 It took me a while to find a 6" scenic piece of paper and this one came out of a Studio Light Let it snow pad. And when I looked at it I thought OK, all hearts come home for Christmas is the theme for this paper and. So, I dug out this old stamp from the Waltzing Mouse set called Seasons of Love tags stamps and I used some versafine to add it to the third panel of paper. The sentiment on the farthest right Neenah solar white cardstock panel is from the Hero Arts Winter Holiday Messages set. 

And I have to tell you I pulled these panels up and moved them multiple times before I got them to look like this. And because of that I decided to add the drop piece of the green linen cardstock to under neath of the far left front swing panel part of the fold to give that printed paper some more stability.

So this does not lay flat anymore because, the other bright idea I had was to watercolor some loose pine trees and do some falling snow splatter on that pale green textured paper I used for the other part of the front panel.

Like so, before I painted on the piece which was already glued to the card front I tried some colors on a scrap of watercolor paper and a small scrap of that same textured heavy paper to see how it would look and I decided it was "ok" for this thought. I also splattered this with some Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white. 

At this point I have not added embellishments to the far left corner of the card where you hold it to open it. I am considering adding a Merry Christmas some where though. And then when I handed this to hubs to open, he did not open this like to see the scene, the way you will see it open in that video. He opened it and then could only see the two inside pieces with the white panel. And he spun it around and flashed it at me and his face said? this is not impressive. So, its something to keep in mind its one of those folds that may not be self explanatory to a non card maker. I did have fun with this and I do like the colors but, the green linen textured cardstock is pretty wrinkly looking on the back side of this card for how many times I removed those scene panels and re glued them. Probably I should have used liquid glue. I am not so sure I would do this again like this, what I like about the whole thing is the framing that the splitting the panels gives like a trio of hung art and so, in my mind this may work better for me to just make a flat card and split the scene that way.  That's about it from me, I hope you are also enjoying this Mother's Day weekend. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Ethan Allen}

 This week Kia is sharing the Ethan Allen site for inspiration. And I seen this Hem stitched table runner and I kept coming back to it. What I thought was interesting was the shade of blue. Some how I tend to lean away from Blue things in card making. I have no real reason why and the hem stitched linens I own are all white so, I thought why not.

 So I cut the layer with the Spellbinders hem stitched rectangle die from some thin blue cardstock and it ends up being slightly under A2 in real life. The other colors that caught my eye in those photos were the brown table, the white dishes and that there was a pine sprig on the plates so, I seen it as "Christmas" and blue for Christmas is also something I don't do much of so, I had this previously embossed piece of printed wood grain paper and thought OK. so I used the next size down rectangle in the Hemstitched die set to make it fit inside the stitching layer. I was messing around with the idea of adding sprigs to this some how because of the sprigs on the plates but, ultimately discarded them.

The ribbon here is from the Stamp Simply Site. The Photo corners here are from the Frantic Stamper Chevron Dies. The sentiment die is from Penny Black and I did cut three layers of it so that it would pop better on that brown background. The matelasse embossing folder here is from Anna Griffin. I did use a white gel pen on some of the clusters of dots in the embossed panel and then over the top of the white with a stardream sparkle pen over the top of that and in a few little spots of the sentiment diecut as well. 

I keep thinking maybe I should work the springs in for one more white space maybe some how dangling under or tied on to that knot of ribbon but, so far this is how it looks when I stopped.  I do not know who makes this blue cardstock but, the cream here is from Simon Says Stamp. I don't remember who makes that wood grain print but, its double sided and it has a black and cream sheet music print on the flip side of it. 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 Loose Lilacs

 Hello & Welcome, This week I am hosting the watercoloring challenge Tutorial at Splitcoaststampers. And I have chosen this video from Emma Jane Lefebvre called Loose Watercolour Lilacs seen here on YouTube. 

I liked the colors of here the what is it cover shot of the video on YouTube and the lilac's are blooming here. And I find it very hard to do loose watercolors so, that made it more of a challenge with happy colors. So, I thought OK lets try this.

 I started with a piece of Arches cold press cotton paper and started adding some color to the background.

 I added a little more paint while it was wet and decided it would fade away to nothing when it was dry so, I kept going.

so this is what it looked like wet when I stopped.

 

So I added a little more to the center. And really did walk away at this point because, the middle one just looked muddy to me.

 And this is how that dried.

 So I started adding a bouquet type cluster over the top and some very suggested leaves towards the bottom.

 And I thought splatters and walked away again. and went to work.

 

 What it looked like dry when I got home, and I thought the center one does not look any closer than the background sides of the bouquet so, I started adding darker colors to the edge flowers again, added more color over the top of the center flower and some more splatters. 

 I like the colors OK but, I am waiting to see how this dries. and the reality is because it is Loose-ish. I could very easily pile more paint on this for a long time trying for some kind of "more"

 

So we've bypassed loose and gone straight to muddy BUT, I can see some depth in the center around the center bloom now. so as a learning curve this was steep. 

 

So, I did cut this down with a Crealies Cross stitched rectangle die and then wrapped the green ribbon around it and tied on the sentiment panel with some Hemp string. This sentiment is from the Taylored Expressions Love Everywhere set. The base here is some Bazzill and its A6 in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {A Pretty Fix}

 This week Julie is sharing the A Pretty fix site and Pinterest boards. And some of their boards are "group boards" so, it seemed to me that everything I found was on one of the group boards haha. but, I kept coming back to this shot with all these clipboards arranged on the wall. And I had a while back cut some of these Tim Holtz Vault NoteWorthy Clipboard diecuts and I had dug it out earlier in the week thinking I could use it with the clean and simple challenge which this week is to highlight a diecut but, I knew If I built on it and layered it, it would not be clean or simple so, I set it aside and had to laugh when I seen that wall and thought why not. SO, the piece of paper on top of the clipboard is a pre-cut piece from a Kaiser craft pad. 

And so I punched it out of the Sweet Nothings pad with my fingers and layered it to the clipboard which received a dusting of DOX Saltwater Taffy ink along the edges. Those mulberry flowers have faint Sheet music print on the petals and I have had them sitting in a little dish on the table for some time now and I though the colors were "close enough" So I wanted something lumpy to give it more of a collage look I think they were found at Hobby Lobby last Christmas? something like that. The printed paper behind the clipboard I don't remember who makes it anymore its from a really old pad that was disassembled and put into the pink hanging folder of such odds and ends. The base here is some PTI Sweet Blush and its A2 in real life. Those little tags were at the top of the clipboard are tied on with some Lawn Fawn hemp string. The heart tag is from the Trinity Stamps Bitty tags set and the other is from the Craft Addict UK mini birthday tag die set. The heart also received some Saltwater taffy along its edges.  The Sentiment here is from the Waffle Flower Tulips stamp set done with some Versafine clair nocturn ink. because, its not flat there was a sliver of white showing on the edge of the top piece of paper. So I used a black pen to put some black there to blend it a little. I know I need to get the Mother's Day Cards I need to send out in the mail today and so, I don't really want to go stand in line to mail it so, I think keeping it mostly flat is going to be the plan for this year. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

May Dirty Dozen Christmas card

 Hello & Welcome back, its that time again when the prompt for the next months Christmas cards with the Dirty Dozen at Splitcoaststampers hits the threads. You can find this challenge prompt here in the special forums set aside for FanClub members. 

 This is one of my favorite themes for Christmas cards so, it surprised me that I only have just this one done so far. Every single month I think "oh, you could do a whole bunch off this theme" or that idea but, its been a struggle to just get one done each time on time.

 So I started with this pine sprig branch from the old Stampin' up Ornamental Pine set and used some Tim Holtz watercolor pencils to stamp it on some Kraft Cardstock. Directly to the cardfront. I also ended up adding more TH DOX inks over it as well with a dauber and so, it has a few layers of color on it.

And then I decided it needed to sparkle for Christmas so, I added some White gouache paint, Rangers stickle glitter glue and some Faux Snow from a snowtex jar. I found this previously die cut from scraps Joy word block from Newton's Nook that I had cut from some woodgrain print that had falling snow on it so, I added some stickles glitter glue to its snow spots in a few places as well while I was at it. 

 I spent a lot of time puttering trying to decide how to tie that joy word block in with this branch and then I came across this sparkling winter that I had stamped and die cut who knows when using I don't remember what and thought. OK this could work. And I let it stay simple like this. I do like how it turned out and Maybe I could even do a few more of them some time. (maybe with less products on it haha) but, at any rate it is one more done that I will be sending out this year and there is that. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring Spritz Flowers

 This week Linda is sharing this video tutorial seen here on YouTube that is using a spray spritz waterbottle to move the paint for a loose abstract pot of flowers. 

I did watch the whole video before I started painting and I decided that because it would start with spraying the paper with water I picked a bigger piece of paper to try it on. 

 It looked pretty straight forward so, this was first round of Daniel Smith paints while wet and I walked away from it at this point.

 how it dried.

 So I did add in some more paint to the dried painting and I really didn't like this but, by this point I had already forgotten what ever she may have said about this stage of the painting. I know now when I look at the mug shot of hers that there had to be water added to these paint dots because, they did not dry like this on her finished paintings.

 So I spritzed it with water again, added more dots of color and drug some of those around with the wet brush. 

 Today when I came home from work I added more blue to the right side of the pot and more color to the flowers. and so, I really like how the colors melded for the pot here but, I feel like the greens for the foliage got really muddy. and I am not liking the blooms that well. but, Abstract and loose are very hard for me so. 

This is how it looks at the moment. I have not made this into any kind of a finished project. I think this could work for a gift tag maybe not sure yet. The thing I think I want to try some more is the colors I chose for the pot and I think if I were to do this again I would probably change the colors of the flowers/leaves as well. maybe pay more attention to what colors she may have used. Just thinking out loud. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.