More Christmas Cards

 So, I have been "cleaning" in my space er, re arranging piles... and I gathered up images that were colored, card bases that were started, anything like that and put them into one tray and I am calling it a "work in progress" pile... So, I started pulling things out of the top of it and just "finishing" them yesterday with the idea most of this could go Christmas.

 This mouse was watercolored a long time ago ( on not good watercolor paper) and I had cut the circle opening out of this printed paper and taped it to be seen through the opening a long time ago but, its really warped. This was the top of the pile in the tray. The sentiments here were done with the SSS TH stamptember set they are gold heat embossed on Kraft cardstock and the colors are a little wonky here. This batch of cards were all shot before the sun came up there this morning. This one is 6" square in real life and the printed paper layers are up on foam tape above the cardbase. 

 I have a second container that is holding little plastic envelopes of previously diecut sentiments and so the "shadow" layer under these words is vellum cardstock. This one is a Slimline and I think I did this base years ago, seems to me I made another card with this same papers in this size and this was the drop piece, I scored and glued the papers on and set it aside. I don't remember who makes it anymore. 

 When I was looking for a green ish paper to layer under the mouse card I came across this pack that had these Bird wreath sheets. I love this, I did not want to cut it up. It's in a studio light pad I remember that part so I just added this Tim Holtz sentiment to it and called it done. It's also 6" square in real life.

 which lead me to thinking I have other "really pretty" printed papers with birds and I pulled out this one from an Crafters Companion pad and so it has some swiss dots chocolate ribbon on the corner and a Sue Wilson diecut words. Very simple and also 6" square in real life. 

 I had watercolored this kitty (Penny Black) when I was doing all the silly Unity Critters recently and had die cut it with that same Spellbinders perfect touch rectangle die when I was doing the bird one a few days ago for the Inspiration this week and I had done this sentiment recently also and I thought OK these look like CAS Art tile like this with all the green space haha. This one is A6 in real life. I did try to get the gouache on the hat trim to be lumpy for texture and added some stickles for bling as well. 

 So, I had this one cardbase that was this pretty shade of blue so, I started thinking maybe snow. Found this printed paper with the wood framed rustic snowflakes and I liked the colors together but, not so much of all the blocks. so, I cut up the paper. the center panel is from that same pad and it was really flat so, I ended up finding these already cut Lawn Fawn stitched snowflakes from scraps ( long time ago) and layering some of them over that panel. The Noel is heat embossed with ranger seafoam white on some pale green from that recent TH SSS class kit sentiments and so those panels are up on foam pop dots as I wrapped some silver tinsel type cord ( May Arts ) around the panel as well. This one is A2 in real life.

 one of the cards in the bin was a green base and so, I had these scraps towards the top of a scrap pile from when I was cutting things up a few days ago. and I trimmed them down and layered them across the front. Tied on that big gingham ribbon and then just added the previously stamped and diecut sentiment to the bottom. This one is also A6 in real life. This concludes last nights flurry of gluing session. I am hoping to squeak out a few more from that tray soon. I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

 

Inspired By {K. Van Bourgondien}

 Hi & Welcome, this week Amy has chosen the K. Van Bourgondien site and Pinterest Boards for inspiration and I had some happy mail arrive mid week and I was hopeful I could use some of it and I found an entire board of just Tulip flowers Where I came across these beauties. I love that color combo. So, I used that as a jump start for these. The color I used on the tulips is Coral from Daniel Smith.

 I knew that in the past I have liked live things as no line but, the other things really need that definition so, this time around I first stamped this Spellbinders image with just morning mist ink in the Misti and after a couple rounds of that I used the Nocturn pad in the center of the image and the pieces of the right side of it so the card base and scissors with that black. and I thought OK you can work with this. This is first round of paints on some Arches cold press watercolor paper. 

I know it would probably be better to stamp these highly detailed images on the smooth hot press paper but, I like how the paints pool on the textured so, after a couple more layers of paints I did grab an Fineliner pen and add some details to the edges of the card and the eye of the mouse. 

This sentiment was stamped directly on the Basic Grey printed paper and its also from the same Creative Day set as the image. The base here is some Stampin' Up! Soft seafoam and the finished size is 5 1/2" square. I am finding that the envelopes of that square size are going for just a couple stamps instead of parcel prices like 6" square cards so, there is that. The more I look at this the more I think it needs just a bit more shadow around the mouse and his hands on the stems so, I may tinker with it just a tad more. 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.

Sleeping in Crocus

 Who knew but, the day after time change is "national nap day" or something like that so, Jeanette picked sleepy as a theme for the Clean & Simple challenge at SCS earlier in the week, so I decided to go with this sleeping in crocus Stampa Rosa House Mouse image.

 So, I stamped this with some Versafine Clair Nocturn ink on Arches cold press watercolor paper and proceeded to add layers of paint to it off and on all week. I'm not real thrilled with the skin tone on the mice but, I think the rest is "ok" 

I finally decided if it was going to be a card, I needed to stop messing with it. So I trimmed it with one of the rectangle dies in the Waffle flower A7 set and used a texture Bazzill for the base. This is A7 in real life and the inside is lined with some smooth Neenah. I do not have a single clue who I would give this to so, I have left the words off for now. That's about it from me, hope you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by. I have entered this into the House-Mouse & Friends Monday challenge blog found here. If you'd like to play along with that The theme is anything goes or Food. . #housemousechallenge 

VSN The Holiday Edition {Part 2}

 A few more of the VSN challenges have been done by me and I had the bright idea to use my cell phone for all these shots, the tags from the previous post also. The thought was it would save me some time and since I am mostly shooting this in the non daylight hours under studio lights the thought was maybe some of the white balance would be better and the colors would not be so off. ( shooting a lot of red and white the two colors I tend to struggle with shooting)At any rate here's a few more things. 

Misti has a do Christmas Plaid as a challenge and I found this piece of really old Basic Grey that I have had squirreled away and decided it would be cute with a Penguin. I stamped this Xmas Wait! from Penny Black on some Arches cold press watercolor paper. I did use black since this bird has a lot of solid sections and I knew it would be "quick" as there is a 1 hour time limit to VSN projects. I did end up going over the top of those black spaces with lunar paint to fill in the texture there as the ink you know was only on the top surface. (that is something I really enjoy with coloring with watercolor paints is how easy it is to fill in something like that) I cut the paper with an Impression Obsession deckled rectangle die and then found these previously hot foiled sentiments in the drawer. ( I have an entire drawer filled with sentiments ready to use like this) so. I don't remember which foil this is or what the color of the paper is but, it does look better in person.I also added some clear sparkle glitter glue to the fur trim on his hat. This one is A2 in real life on some Neenah solar white. 

Jeanette has a put a gift on it challenge and I had this Stampabilities Mice Elves stamp out on the shelf behind the table with an IO sentiment wanting to use them. So, to save some time I decided all the gifts should be variations of a Red & White combo then I only needed to paint red spaces and add shadows.

I did add more paint to it, along with some grey fineliner pen on the eyes and a few places in the stack of packages. There is also some stardust gelly roll pen on the white spaces for sparkle.

The tag base here (some SU red) was cut with an Sizzix super crescent tag die and the text paper was just trimmed off the edges on the sides with scissors. The stitched B monogram here is an My Favorite Things stitched Alphabet die. The IO sentiment was cut with a Poppy stamps mainstreet pinpoint tag die and the Ribbons are unknown. This tag is about A2 in real life.

Holly has an Glistening snow challenge and I didn't want to over think it. So everything you see here except the sentiment was found in the drawer. I can't remember what color that snow embossed panel is or even which folder I used to do it, but when I fished it out I did die cut it down smaller with a spellbinders labels die and then when everything was glued together I added Crystal stickles glue to the centers of those snowflakes. The base here is some mirror like silver. and all those Snowman pieces are diecuts from IO dies. The sentiment. I cannot read the mfg. info on the end of the block but this was stamped on some Neenah and diecut with a Jumbo IO stitched banner die. This is A2 in real life also.

 

One of the challenges is an CASE challenge featuring Lee Murphy's gallery as she has been one of the organizers of VSN for many years and she is retiring from that. So, after a long deliberation I settled on this particular card because, I still love what she did here as much as the first time I ever seen it. And Lee is the reason I own these swirly Spellbinders tag dies. 

So what I did was I started with gathering some printed papers in similar kinds of colors. The stripe here is probably SU. The floral is Basic Grey. The plaid is from , and the pink cardstock is some Flamingo from SU. This snowman is from Stamps by Judith. it was stamped on some arches cold press a long time ago when It was also started to be painted. I tend to add more paint and shadows now then I used to so, when I find a "started" coloring image I tend to add more to them now when I use them. I did use less layers than Lee's card and one thing I did for interest was used different stitched square dies on those layers and then I put a tiny bit of watercolor paint into the stitched holes to emphasize them a little bit. This one is 5 1/2" square in real life. So, since Lee is also very much into Sparkly besides Pink, I added some crystal glitter glue to the hearts on the mittens and in the cluster of sprigs on the hat. That's about it from me, I know there are something like 4 more challenges left? I am not sure if I will get to them all but, I am thinking about a couple more of them. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Shelterness}

 This Week Julie is sharing the Shelterness site and pinterest boards where I happened to look at the "Faux wood finishes board" and found this how to white wash wood pin. And I started to smile as I knew that gave me an easy card idea to just have a mostly white with whitewashed wood background. 

So, I grabbed this Stampendous watercolor wish image and kept it mostly white and grey and brown. I did on purpose add paint around the lettering so that it would have the slight blue tint to it. The printed wood grain print was fished out of the file cabinet ( so, I don't remember white pad it came out of anymore sorry) the Memory Box doubled stitched frame die was cut 3 times so that the frame has a little depth to the painted panel. I did trim this down just a smidge so that the pale grey textured bazzill could peek around the edges. This one finished out at 6" square in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

Dirty Dozen February card sample

 Painting This one was a longer process than I thought it would be. (It's been 20 some odd degrees colder than normal the last little while so, paint takes longer to dry) I picked this stamp to use for this month's Dirty Dozen Christmas cards prompt found here inside the special forums set aside for Fan Club members at Splitcoaststampers. 

I stamped this Stampendous Candle Chorus House Mouse stamp with Versafine grey ink on Arches cold press wc paper and painted the first layer of "sky" hoping to end up with a night sky. 

This red is Windsor & Newton red. ( it is really red to me, the darker shades of it has a smidge of green mixed in) added some shadows to the snowy ground. ( Or I think it is supposed to be snowy ground, that sounded better in my head than dirt) :)

another round of paints on the candles, sky and a bit on the mice.

more paint on the mice, bird, wicks 

 I probably could have kept adding paint to this for a couple more days but, I needed the sample to go live tonight. So, this afternoon after work I put some stickles glitter glue on the snow. 

I had intended to stamp an old PSX candle sentiment on the inside but, that stamp is being camera shy and I decided to open this Simon Says Stamp Christmas Blessings Stamptember set I had picked up last year and have not inked as of yet. (yes, I probably have more sentiment stamps than images... but, that does not stop me from buying more)(and its not one of the sold out sets if you are interested)  and then today I had some happy mail. 

My friend June gave me some of this Tim Holtz velvet ribbon as a gift and I had googled ribbon sliders one day, I know I have some plain Making Memories ones that are like silver ( those are also hiding) but, I found this pack of hearts, squares and circles on Amazon a while back and they came today. I was hoping they were going to be just a tad smaller than they are to use with this velvet but, this does not look too big. So, some of that made it onto the card front too. I have heard of people using alcohol inks to change the colors of these but, I just wanted the sparkle.

The velvet is so thick though, that wrapping it around the wc paper, it does not allow the wc paper to hit the front of the card base on the bottom so, I am debating about putting some double sided foam tape under the wc paper between it and the base. ( the thing is with it being so cold here and the plastic content in Bazzill papers, I have a little bit of wiggle room for moving things.) if it was hot I would not even try it. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

Simple Watercoloring

 This week the Water coloring team is taking a look at this video that Lydia made about watercoloring a stamped image. 

So in a similar type of thing I decided to stamp off some stamps on my desk that had come in the mail recently on scraps of watercolor paper. 

This is Breezy Pine from Stampendous's House Mouse line. I stamped it with morning mist versafine on some Arches Hot Press watercolor paper and proceeded to put on a layer of Daniel Smith watercolors. 

Second layer of paints. a few shadows. I think I added more paint to the pine branch and crevices than the mouse actually.

I wanted to keep this simple so I tied on some sheer green ribbon and used some textured grey Bazzill for the base. This one finished out at A6 in real life and I really had fun doing this and some extra free time so, I stamped off these (below) on scraps. 

and did pretty much the same thing, this is first layers of paint. the thing with switching back and forth between things you are painting on, it allows the first one to dry so, if patience is not your thing and you have a chunk of time you can get a few going. I did not tape down any of these and just shuffled them out of the way as I added more paint to them. 

this is either second or third layers of paints for these and somewhere between then I die cut them all with stitched dies. and this is what my desk looks like after work today. I hope you all are doing well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by { Wildlife Wonders}

 This week Amy has shared with us the Wild life wonders site where this pretty Hummingbird mug caught my eye as I have been you know sorting and organizing my stamps the last long while and I have been stretching my self to try and paint some of them. 

So I stamped off this Stampa Rosa Hummingbird Express stamp on some Arches 100% cotton hot press paper with some Versafine morning mist ink, and started giving it layers of paint. 

I read somewhere that hummingbirds tend to fly just above the tree tops so, I did sketch in some pine tree tops along the horizion but, I am thinking now the scale is way off ha ha. It's OK and I figure it has to be a little more "real" than just sky everywhere maybe. 

I just trimmed the painted panel with the paper trimmer leaving a larger white space at the bottom like a faux Polaroid look. I did leave off a sentiment as I do not know what I want to do with this yet. The crepe paper is from the paper studio ( Hobby Lobby) and the base is some pale blue textured Bazzill. You can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us, thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Linen Chest}

 This week Kia has shared with us Linen Chest and their pinterst boards where I came across this beach one here which lead me down the trail to this one here. 

And I decided this would work really well with a House Mouse scene and since I have a few of mine stamped off and taped down to watercolor I decided to go with this Tweet Disguise from Stampendous

I cut this with a Lawn Fawn Large cross stitched die when the paints were dry and I used a piece of ( I think) My Minds eye print for a mat and I did do this up rather than centered as I was going to tie on a sentiment to the pool party ribbon. And then I could not make a decision about what I wanted it to say. So, it is just like this. I may or may not add a sentiment later when I know who I want to send it to. This one is 6" square in real life. You can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us, Thanks for stopping by.

Dirty Dozen June Christmas card

 I am having problems with google. ( I am signed in and when I try to leave comments on some blogs ( not all of them) it tells me I have to sign in to blogger which since I have the dash board open to write these posts it ends up being a mental head banging session. That being said I am continuing to make these posts with the thought that it's probably happening to other people too. 

This months prompt totally made me go for the humor of the situation and I picked this Stampendous Tangled tumble stamp to watercolor. This was stamped with Versafine on Arches hot press & painted with Daniel smith paints. That vintage trim was picked as it looked like a garland / light strand to me. The diecuts with a view green shimmer mat was cut with a heffy doodle wonky stitched rectangle die ( its A6 / metric one) 

A peek at the inside. The sentiment here is from Impression Obsession and I think it really plays well with the silliness of the front of the card. As untangling the light strands even from special light organizers is my least favorite part about decorating for the holidays. 

This card is A7 in real life. The tree printed paper here is from Authentique. I did use the waffle flower lacy layers A7 dies for that and their A7 rectangles for the image panel. The prompt for this months Christmas card challenge hides here inside the special forums for Fan Club members at Splitcoaststampers if you'd like to play along with us and get ahead. Thanks for stopping by.

Monday's Projects

 I am really enjoying having a little more daylight after work now a days.. so, Monday afternoon I seen the Clean and Simple challenge was to add in a bird... and so, I picked up the already colored images envelope on my table and flipped through it and found this sweet Penguin and thought why not. ( it was colored with Polychromos and Prisma pencils last fall some time) and has just been waiting. The stitched edge is a Simon Says Stamp wonky die and this one is A2 in real life. that sentiment is out of the Altenew Birthday greetings set.

 A closer look at the coloring this guy is from the Unity Stamps set called Little by Little. I wasn't sure really what color to make him so there are a lot of shades of grey. you can see the brownish "french" ones along with some cool and warm tones.

 Now this was an unexpected bonus. I had not looked at the try a new technique challenge ( the instructions are here) and I had come across some samples in the gallery of others who had combined the two and thought what the heck. ( I had changed out a toilet paper roll that morning before work and knew it.) it was still daylight here So, I tried this ( I have 3 pale shades of cheap acrylic paints and maybe an off white so, that made it a limited supply right off the bat, I did like the burst patterns I made and it had the best contrast with these shades on a darker sheet of cardstock and when it was done it really looked like a Christmas wreath to me. so, I started looking in the previously colored Christmas images envelope and found this mouse. and thought if you add a few more sprigs, it looks like he ran that wreath through the paint and all over the place haha. So, that made the sentiment ( SU) a no brainer.

A closer look at the coloring. done with pencils and a little bit of white gel pen over the top. You can't really see it but there is a piece of wide pale green sheer ribbon that runs under the bottom edge of the stamped panel and wraps around the painted panel. I probably should have wrapped around the red Corrugate too but, such is life. Thanks for stopping by.

Winter VSN {so far}

Kat has a challenge to base a card on one of the Monopoly pieces and so, I took mine out of the closet to see what the choices were (seen below) The ones on her list I have not heard of them. So, I chose the Scotty dog and the sentiment on the side is what is on the inside of the card. The dog is from Impression Obsession, the peace and joy is from the Hero Arts November 2017 kit of the month and the inside sentiment is from the Altenew Holiday wishes set.

I am not really sure what the piece in the back left bottom may be but, It kind of looks like some kind of a cannon.

Brenda has a bunco challenge that needed things in 3's so the image is a trio of ornaments, that were colored in 3 shades of blues. there are 3 different shades of silver on this and 3 colors of cardstock. The ornament trio image is from Impression Obsession and the sentiment is from Penny Black.

Ann has a Canasta challenge which also needed 3 images stamped across a panel and when I went to layer this sentiment over the top you could not see the center image so, I ended up doing it a 4th time so the third could peek out. The bough is from Penny Black and the sentiment is from Kaiserkraft.

Lydia has a black,silver, White with a pop of green challenge based on a board game called Othello.
The sentiment is from an older boxed set of Christmas sentiments from Hero Arts.

Jeanne has a challenge that you have to roll a dice to get the amount of layers allowed on your card. I got a 1... the candle is from Northwoods and the sentiment is a reproduction PSX one.

Melody has a challenge that you have to find/ use something that uses the letters in the word GAME so, I have Green ribbon, an Angled mouse, A Metal brad and and Embossed panel. The mouse is a newer one from Stampendous and the sentiment is from dylusions Christmas words

Diane has a challenge to include a smile and a heart. The sentiment is from Dylusions

Lee has a challenge to make an all white card with a sentiment with color on it, and I had read this on Sunday after I had found this pretty card to CASE from Becky this weeks featured stampers gallery. (seen here) and so changes were to make the tree a diecut, I switched the sequins to rhinestones and the ribbon to a textured paper and moved it farther down closer to the sentiment. I also switched the growing blooms to become packages clustered under the tree. The sentiment is from Elyzbells the tree and packages are Memory Box dies.

It is easier to read upright but, the catchlights on the rhinestones make them look blue like this.

Misti has a challenge to show some candy. and I dug out this old pail topper stamp from Stampendous.