Another Tree Card

 Good Morning & Welcome back. You may have seen that I had taken both of the practice tree panels out of that little bin on the table last week, adding more branches and snow to them as I knew one of the falliday's challenges was "snow" and one was "create a tree not using a tree product" so, I used the one on the printed paper for a tag for the Snow challenge and then realized the other would not really work for what she is asking for on the created A Holiday tree challenge so, I just finished this into a Christmas card and did not link it to any of the challenges. 

 This is A6 in real life, the trees are painted on Arches cold press watercolor paper with some Daniel Smith paints and some Windsor & Newton white gouache. the kraft "window" layer ( next to the painted panel is a die, the 4 stitched frame pieces are a different ( generic ) die I seen on Amazon. These are kinda jury-rigged together on the back side with scotch tape. There is a layer of pop dots between the painted panel and the window frame. All those kraft pieces were inked on the edges with some DOX scorched timber. I seen it was a little crooked after it was glued down but, I have left it like this as the word is straight and its really you know I think if I pull it up, its going to fall apart ha. The Peace word is from the Tim Holtz handwritten holidays die set and that was done from a scrap of artist loft watercolor paper. the Stripe paper here is from the Echo Park Paper pad called baking Christmas Cheer. the base is some textured Bazzill and its A6 in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

A couple of Fallidays projects

 There is a falliday's line up of challenges happening now at Splitcoaststampers. 4 new challenges go live every morning and so, I have been reading along more than playing along but, I have a couple that are not two few or three fer cards now so I thought I would post them together and clear out my to be uploaded folder. 

This first one is the painted panel was a practice piece of doing these trees on that textured printed paper and I fished this out of the bin on the table to do 

 I ended up adding more paint to the trees and more snow spots, the larger one on the left I splattered some additional snow on it and the one on the right I ended up adding some stickles glitter glue to it. 

The Impression Obsession tag die here is one from Anna Wight and I had cut some of my scraps up a long time ago with it and then I found this top tan one and ( its flimsy printed paper) so, I found a second one of Kraft cardstock to glue to the back side here. That Merry was stamped with Versafine on Kraft and cut out with scissors a long time ago so, all I did here was ink the edges with some DOX scorched timber ink as that's whats on the edges of the tag pieces. The white yarn fiber came to me in a swap maybe 20 some odd years ago when people did that fiber swaps from balls of them they bought and the green burlap string is from May Arts. 

I could not sleep last night so, about 1 am ish I started on this one, the green textured base I think could be an Anna Griffin folder ( I have a bin of previously started things on the table) and I liked the color of that behind the little collage I started building and decided good enough. The kraft piece was run through a Spellbinders Herringbone folder and I had added some Daniel smith watercolors to the framed edge part of it when I first pressed it and set it aside so, when I seen that Joanne was hosting a wood fallidays challenge I had pulled that out totally intending to use it some how. 

The tree was cut from watercolor paper a while back ( Its a Tim Holtz die) and I have been adding layers of paint to it for a few months now I'd guess. I had gotten a pad of Simple Stories Simple Vintage Evergreen Memories pad ( this year Christmas paper in the mail this last week) and I had seen this deer print in it and knew I wanted to use it some how. I have trimmed the edges down a little bit its one of those sheets that has 4 different prints on that 6X8 sheet size. The sentiment here I stamped I don't remember how long ago and I just thought it worked with these pieces. I did after it was all glued together add more white gouache to the snow on the tree branches and in a few spots where there was some bokeh looking snow over the deer. ( not every spot just some of them) That's about it so far from me, its supposed to freeze here tonight and possibly snow ( slightly ) very early in the AM tomorrow so, the cleaning up the garden calls. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by {Pacha Soap}

 This week Kia is sharing the Pacha Soap site and Pinterest boards for the Inspiration destination & I happened across this leaf shaped Soap bar and remembered that Susan has an "Holly & Mistletoe" challenge at Splitcoaststampers for the Fallidays event and I thought OK you could combine them.

I started out cutting some scrap watercolor papers with the Tim Holtz Sizzix Vault set called Winter Candle light dies and started adding some Daniel Smith watercolors to them. There is a bit of Windsor & Newton White Gouache on the berries. ( not all of them but some of them) 

 So when the paint dried ( I added another layer of paint to the bits and pieces) and glued them onto a piece of White Neenah that I had run through a Spellbinders Ornate Molded Frame folder a while back that happened to be in the bin on the table. 

 

I used a paint brush to add a few more stems between the die cut pieces. 

I added a sentiment from the Waltzing Mouse Season of Love Tags Stamps set below the sprigs with some Versafine ink and then trimmed the framed panel a little bit so that the front cover of the Card front in the same card stock could peek out behind it.  I have been debating adding some glitter glue to the berries but so far have resisted that urge. That's about it from me so far, I still have a few more things drip drying with paint on them that will hopefully become finished Falliday's projects but, I am pretty tickled that I did get 2 done so far since it opened this week. I hope you are also doing well & If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

 

Watercoloring a Weeping Willow Tree

 This week Ann is sharing this video tutorial on doing a dry brush style weeping willow tree seen here on YouTube by Olga Koelsch called easy watercolor weeping willow. So, I watched the part where she did the background then walked away to let it dry, and I did try a simple sketch.

And the thing is I am using a water soluble pencil for these sketches so, I knew doing the background I was going to have to remember where the lines were for the tree. so, I did not do that many of them.

 

I think of these tutorials like a memory game, what do you remember. well this is what I remembered and when I turned the video back on where I had stopped and she starts in on the tree trunk I realized. I had totally spaced having a horizon line haha.

So I added in a slight green tinted line to the horizon. maybe its far away bushes and such... I didn't try to make it into any thing. 

 

I went back and started watching the video and started in with some squiggly branches and a trunk and some leaves. I did consider going outside to look at the colors of mine. I bought a stick Weeping willow tree for 10.00 about what 18 years ago? maybe less, its a pretty big tree they grow quick with enough water so, mine ( I think without looking) the end branches tend to lean a little more on the green side so, I thought lets just wing it.

I decided the branches needed to kiss towards the ground more, remembered the "shadow" part. I don't really remember any of the colors of paints she may have mentioned and mine are a mix mostly of what ever was close by in the palette. And this is where I stopped. This is some Arches cold press with Daniel Smith paints and I did all of it with just the one brush. I am trying to decided what else I want to add to this scene, mine is a hiding spot for all the birds that think they are being so stealthy while they stalk my process of refilling the bird feeders in my yard ha ha. ( so my tree tends to have quite a bit of noise coming through the leaves ) 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 Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

 

Inspired by {Family Handyman}

 This week Julie has chosen the Family Handyman Site & Pinterest boards for inspiration And my assumption was I was going to find something to do say an Anniversary card for hubs in there but, as soon as I seen the mug shot on this artificial Christmas tree I remembered that Linda had a challenge recently while I was off line to do a glowing Christmas tree. and earlier I had seen that one of the Fallidays challenges that has been leaked early is Lisa's Snowglobe one... so it seemed like a karma thing to get a three-fer card from these things. And so, I still need an Anniversary card soon-ish haha.

 I started by cutting all the pieces of this Honeybee stamps snowglobe die set from some Artist loft watercolor paper and some woodgrain printed paper. I inked the edges of the woodgrain paper with some DOX scorched timber ink and set it aside after gluing it to the "frame" part of the globe. I did do a sketchy tree trunk with some brown paint although the video (seen here on YouTube) from the watercoloring challenge does the tree in shades of green mostly. 

At this point I had only watched the first 5 minutes of the video tutorial when the artist is doing it on scratch paper... and so, I flicked on some branches and then went and finished watching it.

I did not make the ends of my brush all discombobulated I just did some dry brushing on this, as it was pretty warm here today and using a small brush it was nearly dry as I was putting it on. so I did end up using a paper towel to soak up the clean water in the "glow" circles you see here. I did add more paint to more of the white space to make the tree a little fuller looking. 

I added some silver iridescent paint and some white gouache straight out of the tube to the top of this layer for some "snowfall" since its going inside a "snowglobe" frame. I widened the tree trunk and gave it a wash of water for some ground as well. 

 I decided the frame needed to be deeper so I cut one more frame from the same watercolor paper and glued it to the back side of the piece that had the "wood grain base" glued on to give it more depth and then added more white gouache to some spots and let it all sit under an old block to set the wet glue.

 I loved how the tree in the Pin is displayed against the white detailed wood wall and so, I found this old pad of woodgrain prints and although there are some papers that have more white than grey to them the boards were just too narrow to look ok with this tree so, this one its leaning a little grey here. and I am OK with that. The sentiment was stamped and cut out with scissors a long time ago but, I think its either Memory box or Poppy stamps. the tiny snowflake is an Shank less button. and that part of the sentiment off the wood base has a foam pop dot under it. The base here is some textured Avocado cardstock and this one is 6" square in real life. If you'd like to play along in this challenge you can find it here at Splitcoaststampers. That's about it from me. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

October Dirty Dozen Christmas

 It's that time of the month again when the Dirty Dozen releases the theme prompt for the month's Christmas Card idea. And this was the first time in months I was actually home when this happened and I had stolen some time to take the image I started coloring for last month's theme and then switch gears to use the image for this upcoming one. I am thinking I want to do something for last months theme that I am still thinking about. But, its one of those it will have to wait for the weekend things.

So I started out by stamping this image on some Artist Loft watercolor paper with Versafine ink and adding Daniel Smith watercolors to it. I knew that the spaces on the image were pretty small so that meant I could get away with using this paper as it would not be soaked with water.

I did add a little more paint to this in between the image above ad this one. when it was dry I cut the painted panel with the Simon Says Stamp Notched rectangle dies and I wrapped that vintage lace around the panel. (it's taped to the back side) and then I used the Pink Fresh Studios Notched Corner Frames dies to cut the pattern and the edge of the Die Cuts with a view chocolate shimmer card for a mat layer. I fished out this green printed paper Tim Holtz Palette collection Green a while back and decided that I liked the colors as not so traditional for a Christmas design. 

 The base here is some textured Guacamole cardstock from Bazzill and its finished out at A6 in real life. That sentiment here is from the Honey Bee Stamps / Simon Says Stamp Stamptember set called Holly Jolly Frames. I did not get the dies just the stamps and it was kind of a lucky thing. it seems like all the Stamptember things sold out faster than usual this year? or maybe its me? ( I did not take my log in information for the store with me to NC earlier in the month so I did miss out on the TH set this year but, I am planning to watch the replay of the class on YouTube soon. Any-ways, That's about it from me. If you'd like to play along with us and get your Christmas cards stash going you can find the prompt here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club members. Thanks for stopping by.