November Dirty Dozen Christmas feeling

 It's that time of the month again, Happy Halloween by the way. As the time flies by and it feels more like crunch time to get cards done and Finished for Christmas mailing I decided to go pretty Clean and Simple with the November prompt for the Dirty Dozen Christmas cards at Splitcoaststampers. ( You can find the details here in the special forums set aside for Fan Club Members) 

 I started out by cutting all the pieces from this old Impression Obsession birch trees die set ( the birds and the three trunks are all from that same set, this could be one of the oldest dies I own actually) from some Artist loft watercolor paper and adding Daniel Smith paints to the top. This paper has a slight resist to it and since the die cuts are pretty slim I did this on a paper towel.

 When the first layer of paint was dry I added on a second ( and later a third and a fourth) trying to get some color on this paper and I shot this one on the glass so you could see the size/shape haha.

I ended up using foam pop dot's to pop up the birds (in the air where there really were no branches under them) and then added some Shadows here and there. This card base is a pre made one from a Strathmore pack of watercolor cards. The sentiment here is from the Tim Holtz Tiny Christmas words set. Its on some Neenah solar white with Versafine Clair ink.

This might be my most favorite card I've done this year. ( I tend to think that when ever I am done with most of them but, this time I really mean it) I had thought I was going to add some falling snow but, the branches are pretty tight to the tree trunks so, I skipped that thought to keep it on the cleaner side. That's about it from me. I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Inspired by {Shabby Fabrics}

 It's my turn to host the Inspiration challenge this week at Splitcoaststampers and I came across this Shabby Fabric's site and they have Pinterest boards as well. There is so much eye candy on the fabric boards. I saved so many things but, my brain works better for changing things into cards if its a more simple design so, I finally settled on this red & white snowman pattern pin seen here. 

 The prongs of the heart brad were taped to the back side of that printed paper scarf, so it doesn't stick up that much. 

I cut all of these pieces a long time ago so, it will take a while to hunt down all those dies. But, the snowman here is the "primitive snowman" die from Impression Obsession and the that is all paper except the heart is actually a metal brad. I had intended to have him holding a banner of words or letters but, I found these frames in the envelope of red & white things and decided to just do a banner of words. and I did pick red pieces that had "country" fabric feels to me, So I ended up building a collage of these bits and pieces. The white wood grain print is from a Echo Park pad and I know that square in the lower right corner is old Basic Grey but, the gingham patterns & dots were cut from scraps so? On the snowman's face I used a piece of magic tape on the back side of his fave to keep all those pieces in the holes and then used a sharpie pen to color the eyes and mouth black. The base here is a piece of Fancy Pants corrugate and its 6" square in real life. The sentiment here is from the Tim Holtz Tiny words sentiments and is up on foam pop dots. 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. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring a Spooky Forest with a Ghost

 It's my turn to host the Watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week and before that I happened across this video tutorial from Ellen Crimi-Trent and I loved how the light was in the center of her painting and thought why not? ( I have a friend at work who is into Ghosts and so this is heading to her on Friday this week.) I know  a lot of people are either in the fly by the seat of their pants last minute creators and or did this upcoming Halloween holiday cards months ago, so the thought was you either have an idea for now or a way early jump start for next year haha. 

So I used some masking fluid to make a ghost shape on a A6 sized piece of Arches cold press paper.

 

 I do not use masking fluid often, I did remember to shake the heck out of the jar of it, BUT I forgot to get the cleaner on the bristles of the brush when damp before adding that to the fluid. So we won't discuss how long it took me to clean that brush you see here. ( don't be like me, get the cleaner on your bristles first haha) 

 The next day by the time the fluid was not so goopy ( its cold here ) I had remembered the gist of the video ( I thought ) but it looks to me (now as I type this) that I got my trees a little too dark and a little too close together but, even seeing that while the paint was wet I kept going because, it took forever for that masking fluid to "dry"

 I added some brown to the grey to get the "ground" but, what I thought she used, ( I grabbed burnt sienna and mine is almost a burgundy shade) it just did not look right. My paynes grey is paynes grey blue so again my colors just felt off to me from what I remembered of what she did.

 So I kept tinkering with the colors trying to make the edge trees darker and give it some depth.

more of the same. 

When I took the masking fluid off this morning before work, I seen that my edges were not clean at all around the ghost shape and I ended up adding a layer of pale grey to the top of the fabric area before I got a shot of it.

 A little more paint and I ran out the door for work letting it dry so I could add eyes when I got home.

 Added some eyes and some branches on the ground in front of the fabric area 

 After I pulled of the Magic tape I used for masking, I did follow her directions about starting from the painting edge and pulling off towards the cardboard. ( that does work for tearing the cardboard instead of the painted paper) and I seen that haha. ( I used short piece of that clear tape and did not see that they were so not lined up. So I trimmed this panel down on a Tim Holtz  deckle trimmer and made them jagged.

 I ended up mounting this to a black cardstock base and then the panel to the left is what is stamped on the inside. The outfit sentiment is from Riley & Co. 's funny bones line and the happy Halloween is from the Message me set by clearly besotted. The sticker on the front is from the Tim Holtz Occasions pad of sticker sentiments. and Doing this made me realized I don't really collect Halloween sentiment stamps, I've had the ghost outfit one for a while intending to make her a card with it and so yay me I did it. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Smile Mercantile Craft Co.}

 This week Amy is sharing the Smile Mercantile Craft Co. Site and Pinterest Boards for the Inspiration challenge this weekend and I happened across this Santa hat card where the fur trim had become gems instead of fur so, that caught my eye. 

 So I sketched a hat outline with a red watercolor pencil on some Tim Holtz watercolor paper.

 And I filled it in with some Daniel Smith watercolor paints and waited for it to dry. I had considered die cutting this panel smaller and gluing the gems and pearls to it but, it dried pretty wrinkly so, I ended up cutting it out with scissors. 

 I ended up putting some foam pop dots under the hat panel and that put it at a level closer to the height of the gems and pearls added to where the fur trim would be. I glued this to a piece of white wood grain printed paper that had been diecut with a stitched square die that would fit into the space of an PTI tag square tag die. The No Peeking here was stamped and diecut sometime last year when this came out during one of those Tim Holtz / Simon Says Stamp classes happened. ( I've forgotten the details but, if I get some time I will try to hunt down the set name and would edit) I wanted the fibers to sparkle so I found this mesh sparkly red fiber in a baggie and added some May Arts iridescent cord to that. That's about it from me. I appreciate the time you took to read this, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by. 

watercoloring simple Floral Designs

 This week Linda is sharing a video seen here on YouTube doing simple Poinsettia with greenery cards by Shelly Cluff art and I instantly thought that design would look super on gift tags.

I have some Tim Holtz & Artist loft watercolor papers on the table so I die cut them with the same SSS tag die I used on some fallidays projects because, the long skinny shape mimic's a card front to me.

 The tag in the top right corner is the first one that I started on the Tim Holtz paper, the one with just the bloom starting in the bottom of the shot is Artist loft paper.

 What I can tell you is, the paper makes all the difference in the world. I consider these to be more along the lines of learning pieces rather than things I would give away. The one on the left is TH paper the one on the right is AL paper. I struggle with simple and loose, as you can see I kept adding more and more layers and sprigs and petals and such. The plan was to come home on Tuesday and do a third on some Arches paper but, life happened. I have my fingers crossed I could be home in the daylight today. in the mean time if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 So the one on the far right was done with nearly the same colors in slightly different amounts on Arches cotton paper. 

 And then I added another layer of paint to the first tag on the TH paper.

Which lead to more paint layers and a few streaks of white gouache on the flower petals.

 

That lead to more paint on the second AL paper.

 And I did also add some white gouache to the petals on this one. which interestingly enough ended up drying grey toned to my eye as you can see in the dried shot below.

 So, that is where I stopped again. I did end up adding some berries to the tag on the Arches paper because, really liked how Linda's looked with the berry sprigs on her card. The learning curve for loose and simple and when to stop has totally skipped my brain haha. I did finally end up with bigger wider bloom petals by the third attempt though, so there is that. I did end up caving and using the same brush she used in her video to do it though. lately I have been mostly using some "long round" brushes they have a more defined tip and do not hold quite as much water so, dry brushing things come easier with them to me and my style is more defined than loose I guess. Okay that's really it from me, thanks again for stopping by. 

Purrthday Card

 One of the Fallidays challenges hosted by Raye Lynn is to do a Black and Purple color combo project. And a while back I had stamped off this Unity Stamps The persnickety Crew on some Arches watercolor paper and started adding some Daniel Smith paints to it.

 And funnily enough most of them were shades of grey-ish purple. except the one in the center which leaned a little brown and really stuck out like a sore thumb so, that irritated me enough to try to lift and lighten its color.

And I just kept adding more paint to it every so often.

 Along with some shadows in the crevices and underfoot. When I seen her challenge I knew I had started this and decided to use it and finish it off.

 I used a Trinity Stamps mini stitched slimline die to cut out the cats panel and then used some SU pale plum cardstock for the base in an A6 size. which left me with a drop piece to add the Taylored Expressions simple strips meow to and then I cut that one out with a waffle flower mini slimline die. The ribbon is unknown and stitched. the photo corners are really old ones from Pioneer so they are taped on the back side of that printed paper that came out of that Mermaid Printed paper by The craft blog beyond the shore pad. I do have a need for Birthday cards in November and I know exactly who is going to receive this one. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.