A few Hearts

 

I had some happy mail from Honey bee stamps yesterday and I started cutting some of them these are from the lace hearts layering frames and mini post card dies. from Neenah classic cream and that collage layer is from the BoBunny Ecetera pad. that lace is vintage but, this shot was done to show the addition of the red Christmas stickles glitter glue on the postage stamp space and the bases of the flowers on the top heart. 

I did use a tiny paint brush and some Windsor & newton red watercolor in the crevices of these layers along with lots of Distress Oxide vintage photo ink. The base is A6 in real life and the inside also was inked with the vintage photo. The special delivery is also from Honey Bee stamps Post Marked set.

Over the years I have bought so many postage themed stamps ( I still buy them) it seems the trend is swinging around again at the moment and every where you look you can find new postage things. So, taking advantage of that, this the green collage print and the eyelet lace heart were also cut from the same old Bo Bunny pad and then the heart has stamping over it from I will list them its a lot of sets. And then I used the largest primitive heart die from Anna Wight at Impression Obsession with just plain kraft cardstock and inked and stamped that. before it was stamped I used the smaller heart from that same set to cut out the center of the heart so that the printed paper and stamping of the bottom eyelet layer could peek through and then had a place to tuck in the Club scrap sentiment. The heart layers are up on foam pop dots for some dimension.Stamps on this one are from Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Field notes, mail art, Eccentric, Unity Stamps Christmas Express, Spellbinders Cathe Holden sign here, Club Scrap You've got mail, That floral ribbon is vintage. There is a clean and simple valentine with unusual colors challenge at SCS this week but, I think this will be a thank you note for happy mail. That's about it from me, Happy Thursday and thanks for stopping by.

Painting a Winter Scene

 This week Kia has shared this video seen here on YouTube from Ellen Crimi-Trent called Easy winter watercolor tutorial. 

So, it starts with a wash of blues and greys with some white gouache splatter to be falling snow. that you let dry.

I was thinking colors are not quite deep enough so, I totally put on a second layer of water, wash and splatters over the top of this then walked away. It's really cold here compared to last week so, it took a very long time to get "mostly' dry, not really dry.

I was using windsor & newton white gouache here and I was having a hard time getting gradients of it so, I did go to deal with dinner and such at this point and I never made it back up the stairs last night. I am debating about if I want to switch some of the snow to be Bleed Proof white and or I do have white shimmer watercolors also. So, these are things I am thinking about. part of my brain says if the wind is whipping those branches to the side like this the snow should be more flurried to the right also, So I have lots of snow to add I think before this will become something. 

added some more "snow" and the opal blue (white) has blue catch lights you can kind of see it with the paper on an angle like this.

A little more snow as added after work today.

What the painting looked like after I stopped adding snow to it. 

Dug out two of these Tim Holtz chipboard window frames and used glue dots to put it over the painting, the large "snow" made me think bokeh effect and so to me that meant seeing the scene through glass. So I decided after the frames were glued down to add a few sparkled Stardust glitter glue in a few spots. The Happy Winter is an Savvy Stamps and its on an Spellbinders justrite tag die tied to the window frame with some May Arts iridescent cord. The finished size of this is A6 on some textured cordinations cardstock. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.

Watercoloring a Bunny in Winter

 This week Brenda has shared this video of doing a bunny in snow with watercolors seen here on YouTube. And the sketching the bunny was not going well for me so, after making some blue cardstock I decided to go smaller and taped off a piece of A6 watercolor card.

Stamped off a bunny on a scrap of Neenah regular cardstock with some versafine and cut it out with scissors. 

Added some shadows to the bunny and the snow forgot to add some blue to the very bottom to make the scene more framed. such is life. 

Decided to run the panel through a Penny Black stitched frame die ( the largest in the set) and then taped the pieces back together again after and that was as far as I got before the challenge went live. 

Decided to cut it down a little more and added a redlead sentiment to the bottom. The base is some sundance felt white textured cardstock cut to A6 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 Negative Hearts

 This week Angie is sharing this video that shows painting the negative space around hearts for depth. I thought the video looked interesting and I gave it a whirl ( on strathmore student paper) 

I thought it may be interesting to have two the same layer touching. if I had to do it again I would have left space between them. 

first round of paint drying under wax paper.

First layer dried, I guess I could have also used some other pencil as I can barely make out the pencil lines here. 

First layer of hearts

next layer. 

So far I am liking the colors here but, I think I would like this better if it was something line forest trees or leaves or something botanical like that rather than the hearts. 

So I cut it down to 5" square wrapped some teal-ish Offray ribbon around the bottom. Poked around in my already stamped sentiments and did not see anything that said pick me. I did mount this to a 5 1/2" square of sparkle bazzill cardstock and this is as far as I got with it. I have to decide what I want to do with it to pick words I think. I am guessing they will be in the lower right corner over that ribbon though when I do figure it out. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {My Red Door Designs}

 This week Denise has shared with us the My Red Door Designs which is a little quilt shop. The have a site, sell on Etsy and a collection of pin boards. So, I seen this heart quilt right off the bat when I peeked. 

And I pulled out some hearts I had diecut in the past. 

And then I promptly decided they were too not right. but, I had fun poking around in them and just might do something with them soon-ish so, they are still on the table. And I knew I had this old Authentique printed paper that has quilted hearts on it that I have like 1 sheet left. 

And I had cut a piece of it into a square and pushed it around on that red bazzill base for a couple of days also. And I kept wanting more texture. What I love about the quilts I own is touching the stitches. So, then I had an ah ha moment and dug out this old Hero Arts stitched heart, stamped it with some pinecone ink on some Neenah white ( which was glaring white with the vintage vibe the printed paper had) grabbed the trusty SU Canvas background and randomly stamped some of it with Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink. It kind of grew layered and collaged from there. The Washi Tape postage stamp is from the 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Serenity Postage Washi Roll. ( these are very cool if you have not seen them there are perforated holes in between each "stamp" on the roll of tape, I know I have a few more of the patterns and one is vintage Santas ( swoon) The heat embossed heart is from the Paper Sweeties Homespun Holidays set and I colored the center with a fine liner pen. (cut it with scissors) The red string heart is a diecut from the Papertrey Ink Bows galore set. I did add some crystal stickles to the knot of it but, then I flipped the card at some point before it was completely dry so, it smeared and then I just added some stardust gelly roll pen to that and as faux stitches around the heat embossed heart and the edges of the tiny craft tag. The sentiment on that tag is from the Simon Says Stamp deer delivery set ( it was a free gift years ago, I am not sure they actually sold that one) and the tiny red brad is from Recollections. I did trim that panel down with a Tim Holtz Deckle trimmer as I wanted as much of that paper to peek out as possible so, I did end up cutting into that sheet to have a piece that would go edge to edge. The red lace is vintage and I don't have a lot of it, so I did cut it off at the edge of the cardfront instead of wrapping it all the way around like I normally would.  That heart strings sentiment is an old one from Susan Branch made by All Night Media. 

A cell phone shot trying to catch the sparkle. ( there is not a lot of it) And I kept thinking this could work as a Thank-You card so, 

I stamped this Tammy Tutterow Thank you heart from Spellbinders ( I've had it a while, I do not know if its still made) on some Neenah earthstone with Acorn ink and started coloring it with some reds and white and sparkle pens for the inside of the card. This is 6" square in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are all doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.

Watercoloring Simple Hearts

 It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge at Splitcoaststampers and when I was trolling video tutorials at YouTube after Christmas this one by Marena Art seen here on YouTube caught my eye. I think it was the 3-D heart that most interested me as I seen it and her color combo's. I know she makes her own paints and the colors I have from Daniel Smith I do not even come close in the pink ranges when I am messing around with mine so, I knew it would be different right off the bat. One of the tips in that video is she is using up not so great watercolor card to do the simple cards from rather than using the good stuff. and I do have a small stack of Strathmore student grade papers to use up still so, I started by chopping up a 12" square sheet into two A6 cards and one drop piece.

The drop piece received water and splatters and random mixes of pinks. I knew going into this that I wanted a 3-D card and I did not want the hearts to be perfect and as I was doing this I intended to grab a primitive heart die but, I decided to just wing it instead.

So, it turned out not so primitive or perfect and I was OK with the colors. 

I knew for the second one that I did not want to doodle that ribbon fold for the heart texture and decided to do 2 overlapping hearts instead. these are just free hand ones and you know it's hard to see the clear water when you make the shape but, all in all I think these are just fine for simple balloon shapes.

When all the paints were dry I did cut a second heart out of the drop piece for the Valentines day card on the right and did use a piece of score tape to attach it. I had originally started out with the top heart being nearly the same size as the flat painted one but, I wanted the flat one to peek out around it so I did trim that top heart a couple of times to get it smaller and then doodled some stitching along the edges of both. The doodles and balloon strings were done with an Micron pen (both cards) and the reverse printed sentiments are from Simon Says Stamp. that is so handy I think to just pop those sheets in the trimmer and have something ready to go. That's about it from me, 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.