More Joy Cards

 So, I did mention I got the whole links wrong for This weeks Inspiration. But, at this time last Year Denise linked us up to the Canvas Art site so, that is where I went. And this wreath print caught my eye because, I had this Peddlers Pack Joy with an wreath O stamp on my table so, I kept looking and then found this vertical version that I loved the colors of. 

So, I had one I stamped on some Artist loft watercolor paper and I started painting the wreath and some how my brain said... do the letters teal.. so, I did. The plaid and green prints on this are from Graphic45 and this one is A7 in real life. That lace is vintage, I think the Especially for you I think is a clearly besotted stamp. 

 And I cut it out with the Spellbinders Perfect touch rectangle die and let it sit. And I knew the colors were not anything like either mug shot but, I had also stamped one version on some smooth Neenah classic cream 110# cardstock. And it was also watercolored. The red dot print was nod to all the printed papers in the vertical shot. 

 The holly print on this one is from Graphic45 the dots is unknown. The photocorners were cut from some printed Basic grey print that was the same paper used on the card below. I don't remember which set that for you is from but, the rectangle die that cut it was an Tattered lace one. This card is 6" square in real life. And after that is when I actually did the vertical diecut card below, that is actually a little more like the second link. That's about it from me at the moment. I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Inspired By { Natural Life}

 This week Denise is sharing the Natural Life site  They have Pinterest boards here. and I came across this Recycled silk ribbon that I drooled a little over...  I totally loved the colors in this shot and knew it could easily become a Christmas card with those colors and the white washed wood behind it. I had recently gotten an old Peddlers Pack Joy stamp where the O was a wreath.. and those were on the table and I painted one in colors very similar to that shot and the other a little different and while the paint was drying I dug out this old Spellbinders JOY die and started messing around with it and those colors.

And then I cut the other dies from scraps to layer on it and did add some extra ones around the O area to be more "wreath like". The flowers were cut from some old mixed media paper that was sprayed with red spritzes and such. The centers of the blooms have some Ranger Liquid pearls in White Opal color. The wood grain print here is from Craft Consortium and it was cut with an Hero Arts rectangle die. That letterpress sentiment is from the Spellbinders better press "Merry & Bright" set. It is up on foam pop dots over the O area. The base here is textured Bazzill and this is A6 in real life. I think this could be an easy enough idea to do lots of them if needed as far as a design idea goes.  If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring an Autumn Forest

 It's my turn to host the water coloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week. I came across a new to me artist named Hannah M. P. who has this video (seen here on YouTube) called paint a vibrant autumn forest with me. I loved the perspective of the title photo of the video and thought it might be interesting to try. 

I started with an Piece of Arches cold press wc paper cut to A6 and taped to an old piece of chipboard.

 I did wet the paper with an size 12 brush, 

And I used that same brush to do some blue cloudy sky for the background, proceeded to mix up some Autumn foliage paint colors and then 

I and thought she said it was a wet on wet thing... and I do not remember her saying to let that blue dry, but I knew better looking at her paint and tried it wet anyways... the yellow went Woosh haha...So, I did let that sky dry. 

 

So I added some random cone shaped treed pointing towards the center and then started adding trunks.

And then I walked away and let this dry because, in my head I was trying to remember what the branches would do. If they were say Aspen trees the branches would go kind of up and straight towards the trunks I was thinking so, I let this sit until this morning and then just added a few branches before work.

 

So, this is what I came home to this afternoon. Today is our 36th wedding anniversary and these challenges tend to go live at Dinner time in my time zone so, part of my brain is thinking maybe it needs some bare branches in here and is there enough time for it to dry from that and be "finished" ( not sure, its been pretty chilly here so) and the other part of my brain is thinking... maybe I can get someone to load the challenge for me if we end up going out to dinner. ( it is an unknown thing right this minute) depends on how the day goes kind of a thing. I have come home before hubs with another head ache. ( I think its the new glasses) and the whole "oooh Shinny" squirrel part of my brain has distracted me again. 

I am not so sure what I want to do with this, so I ended up mounting it to just some textured rusty orange textured Bazzill ( A6 ) and left if flat and no greeting to cover the painting. I think this turned out well and I am glad I tried it. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

4 more Christmas cards

 So, in my "work in progress" tray I fished out these 4 6" square card bases, they had squares with brads in the corners, the ribbon was sewn to the layer of printed paper and they were all slightly different.

And I started eyeballing them because, the pile of Flowers and Foliage from the Stamptember class so, I started pushing things around on them.

I ended up adding stickles glitter glue to these pieces after they were glued down rather than doing the liquid glue and dry glitter. 

It was so dark and gloomy over the weekend when I was doing this that I think all the colors are "off" 

 I had stamped the sentiment from our home to yours on the green printed paper strips but, it faded into the paper and then I spent a lot of time covering that up. 

The gold diecut sentiment here on this one is from Sue Wilson. 

I tend to like the ones with a plaid ribbon more than the dotted one. 

 The white diecut under the JOY is from Impression Obsession, the Joy is from Newtons Nook Christmas words die set and the big flowers in the center are Tattered Florals ( Sizzix TH) 

By the time I got to the last one I had started digging through other ready to play with things in the diecut drawer and bins. That Santa image is printed paper. The frame around it is an Impression Obsession one with tiny recollections brads in the corners. I did ink the outside edges of that with some vintage photo ink and also along the shadow layer of the big "Joy" diecut.  The stamped sentiment here was stamped a long time ago and is from the Unity Stamps "Santa must like you" set. I am trying to remember what die I used for it but, mind is blank. maybe something from Poppy Stamps or Memory box? The tree here is an old die from Taylored Expressions. And I added the bow die cut I think it may have been an PTI die. the "gift boxes" are just paper scraps and then I added that bitty bow diecut to the one in the front.  I think this one is my favorite from this batch. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 
 

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. 

 

 

What I did during the Tim Holtz & SSS stamptember class

 I started out with good intentions... ( see this post, I did "play" with the stamps and dies ahead of time... none of that was needed during the class That pile can be seen in this blog post here.) and we were also still painting the house when this happened so, I only seen the first hour and 45 minutes or so of the class live and so, I eventually did finish watching the video playback of the class but, have just finished moving the piles out of the way on the main table this week. 

 This was using the watercolor pencils on the stamps with the TH watercolor paper. and I guess I missed the whole fact that there was a "smooth side" for a while...

 So, while they were chatting I did pretty much blow through almost an entire pack of his watercolor paper stamping some of the stamps from the class kit with the pencils. 

The first background sheet I tried, the shimmery spray did photograph kind of dark and not really "shimmery" as it appears in person.

This angle may catch some of that shine.

 I did cut some of the tags from the backgrounds a few days later while I finished watching the video and also ended up die cutting all the foliage and blooms I had stamped as well, this shot I took so I could remember which pencils I used but, it probably doesn't really matter as I probably would not try to duplicate any of the color combo's anyways. I think it is more interesting to just do what ever each time. 

 Did some others with colors maybe more for the snowflakes I was thinking. 

 And I did try the some little bits of glitter on a few of the pieces. I did make and finish two tags but, evidently I have not shot those as of yet and I did gift all the loosed glittered and shimmery things to June at work later the next day as well.

 I did end up with a nice sized pile of "stuff" to glue with some day and I did not do any of the cards. The good news is we are finally finished with painting the house and the last of the rain gutters were hung back up today. I am trying to empty out my "to be uploaded" folder and so there just may be a few more blog posts this weekend. (after coffee) Thanks for stopping by. This class has a Hash Tag of  #SSSFestiveWorkshop Since this is the second one I have tried of theirs I am thinking I need to come up with a label section for the blog but, I am also thinking I just might call it "Class Projects"