Watercoloring Brights

 This week Linda has shared this video seen here on YouTube by Cailey called Aesthetic Way to Mixing Multiple Vibrant Colors in Watercolor Florals/Beginners. it is short and uses some bright shades of Mission gold watercolors (which I have so) I dug mine out.

 I did tape down two small enough to fit on A2 card front pieces on a piece of chipboard and started using the bright color of paint on the top panel.

 I didn't really like the brown "grounding" effect, probably picked the wrong shade of brown here.

 While that top piece was drying I decided to try it again on the bottom sheet using more primary colors and some water.

 Tried adding some flowers to the top panel. This was hard, its hard to see those petals on the dark background to my eyes.

 tried adding more water to the bottom panel as it is so dark you cannot see the petals at all, I ultimately tossed this panel in the bin after a few more attempts after this. That did not get photographed.

This is where I stopped with that top panel, I have some gold shimmer paint dots on the background and some dark green for the stems here. After the fact I think I added some gold dots to the centers of the blooms trying to get them to look in front of that background. This is as far as I got with this. My thought about this is, it probably works better with a bigger piece of paper so you have room to do the water between the colors. If you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.
 

Inspired by {Rikumo}

 This week Kia has chosen the Rikumo site and pinterest boards and I came across this crumpled looking wrapping paper assortment here and I knew I had various printed papers that were very similar. So, I found this old scrap of Karen Foster paper first so, that was what I used. I also had received this set of Poppy dies from Simon Says Stamp earlier this week so, I cut the pieces twice from some studio loft watercolor paper and started adding paints to them.

 I did add more layers after this but, this gives you the idea. of the process. some of these pieces are pretty small in real life.

I knew I wanted to have the crumpled paper be the main pattern so, I cut some recollections kraft with an time for tea stitched rectangle frame and inked the edges with some DOX vintage photo ink. The poppy pieces were layered and arranged on the edge to allow more of the paper to peek through. The stems have a bit of Raffia around the stems and the sentiment is an letterpress style one from Spellbinders a little message sentiment done on some of that spellbinders betterpress cotton paper and I did use the die that fits it and this is up on foam pop dots to be above the frame and stems.

The base on this is some cream and was finished out at A7 In real life. I am half way thinking the white of the sentiment is a little white for this card so, I did use some bright white as the liner inside the card. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring Butterflies

 Hi & Welcome back. This week Kia is sharing these watercolor butterflies where you can see the video here on YouTube. The video is called Watercolor butterfly tutorial for beginners by Create with Aura.  I did watch it and I thought as I was watching it that maybe it would work for doing paint on Diecut butterfly shapes. So, out came this Hero Arts nesting butterfly die.

 And I started adding paint in a similar way as what is shown in the video. My thought was I don't need any butterflies at this time as the next bunch of Birthday cards and Father's day cards coming up are going to guys so. I thought maybe if this works I'd have a little stash of previously colored butterflies. 

These are mostly Studio Loft and Strathmore watercolor papers ( so not cotton ) and what I found is its easier to use the water to push the paint to the edges on the larger diecut pieces. 

So far this is what I have done. I did not do any of the "body" die cuts or maybe its antennas, there is one other piece in these die sets and I only did the wings. And I am pretty excited about adding these to my stash. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.

VSN Continued

 I had good intentions of doing a post for every project but... Life happens. So, here are the other things I have done so far for this round of VSN. ( there are still 2 more challenges left that I have not done as of yet and one I am still overthinking about )

 

The next challenge in the line up is this sketch seen here. And I seen after I had this glued that I missed a layer below the curved end banner one and I decided it was OK and left it alone. I had stamped and cut out this poppy and two of the leaves from the Power Poppy Poppy XL set on some watercolor paper and I cut up one of the leaves to make those pieces. I think if I were doing this again I would have stamped and colored a third leaf.

I cut the handmade paper with the botanical bits and pieces in it with a Memory Box nested globes die and then the Poppy here has foam tape under it to be up over the leaves that are just tucked in with glue dots. I found this Sentiment already stamped and diecut with the labels die in an envelope in the drawer so, I don't remember which set it came out of anymore. The base on this card is some sundance felt in natural white cut to 5 1/2" square in real life. 

 The next challenge has a row of pretty flowers across the bottom with butterflies and bees and such in the air above them. So I used this piece of double sided paper from the Ciao Bella Under the Tuscan sun pack and trimmed off some of the sky side to make it fit on an A6 cardbase, glued that along the bottom to give my self some space for the second line of this sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp poppy fields stamp set. ( that made this an 12 minute ish card yay me) 

The next challenge needs something real from Nature on it so, I dug out this piece of handmade paper that had real flower petals in it, and then grabbed the container of previously dried and pressed flowers and leaves to find these pansies. ( from 2003 and yes, they are incredibly fragile) so, I am thinking this will be my MIL's Mother's day card this year as it gets hand delivered and I do not think this card would survive in tack through the mail pressing machines. It's also A6 in real life, the printed paper under the frame of handmade paper is from Basic Grey. The sentiment here is from The clearly besotted message me set. 

The challenge before this one is one I am skipping as it is a fancy mountain fold card and I didn't look to see how complicated it was but, I am very much not doing stress still so, I jumped ahead to the next one which is to take a natural ( critter) and color it in an un-natural color combo. So I painted this bunny from the Happy Hoppers line with some Moonglow paint from Daniel Smith ( it has a lot of purple undertones to it) and then did the lips and cheeks with the bright pink ( its more startling in real life I think) There is a bit of stardream sparkle gel pen on the lines of the shoes and bag for some subtle sparkle. The Printed paper here is from the Memory Box magnolia grove pad and the base is some textured Bazzill. this one is 5 1/2" square in real life. that sentiment is an old one from River City Rubber Works. 

The next challenge is a color combo that is blue, yellow, green that uses the inspiration photo seen here. And when I was putting away the bunny I started opening the drawers under that to see just a way of thinking without really thinking, and I came across this stamp from Linda Grayson at Stamps Happen and thought if you change it a little you could easily do this as blue yellow green. So, I did. 

When I look at the IC photo of the challenge I see it as two shades of greens so, that is the way I went. I did squeak in a bit of black and red and brown but, I think its mostly greens here and is OK for that challenge. The sheer blue ribbon is unknown, I did use a Justrite tag die and then cut the stampendous thanks stamp by hand to glue to it. Its tied onto the ribbon with some black hemp string and this one is A6 in real life. 

 The next challenge is to do a Clean & Simple card with a realistic bird on it, and I knew I had a small pile of Memory Box dies in the basket of stuff I have been collecting and have not played with yet so out came this bluebird prince die set and the nest is also a Memory box die and I cut it from some Studio Loft watercolor paper and just daubed on some paints. ( it did bead up and do its own thing) 

The white panel here was cut with an Frantic Stamper Pierced rectangle die and the ribbon is unknown but, probably SU. The bird is up on foam tape to be above the nest and I did add some black enamel liquid pearls to the eye of the bird. ( which decided to to a hair sized trail of the glue as I was lifting up my hand so, it stained that paper where I scraped it off) and I am debating about adding more paint to it to fix that or not. This is an Pre-made A2 card base from Paper Source in their pool color. 

The next challenge in the line up was mine. And I had a plays well with others challenge that you need 2 living things that are not the same thing on the project. So, it could be plants or critters. and I had received this old PSX stamp in the mail recently and just went with that. I do better doing these challenges playing with what ever is in front of me for the most part. Its kind of my version of a limited supplies sorting for someone that has a lot of choices right? 

I have a feeling I am probably going to end up giving this one to my MIL as well as she collects teddy bears among other things but, maybe not until her birthday or something. not sure yet. I did cut the bear panel with Honey Bee Stamps deckle square here this one is 5 1/2" square in real life. the last challenge in the line up is to do a night sky with mixed media coloring and I am still pondering that one. That's about it from me so far. Thanks for stopping by.

 

VSN {Weather}

 This morning Misti starts us off with an show her the weather on your project. and the wind blows here, almost every day. not quite the same as what you'd see in New Mexico with the whole dust storms but, still big gusts of wind and a breezy thing that picks up in the afternoons. So, I had a few stamps of gals with their hair blowing in the wind and chose this one called "Windy Day" by Katzelcraft and Stamped her with some Versafine Clair Morning mist ink on Arches hot press (smooth) watercolor paper.

 I added in the Simon Says Stamp sentiment after the watercolor paints had dried. The base here is some SU soft seafoam cut to 5 1/2" square. the coat here was painted with one of the sparkly paints so it shimmers slightly in real life. That's about it for this one, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.

 

Inspired by {Art dot com}

 This week Julie has chosen the Art dot com site and I found this Pin of Georgia O'Keeffe poppies painting and stopped looking. I knew I needed to do something really simple because, I am hosting one of the VSN challenges tomorrow night and I have spent a bunch of the free time this week making samples for that.

 

I had this Caio Bella Under the Tuscon sun Paper on the table as I used a sheet of it for one of tomorrows VSN challenges and decided to not overthink this challenge. I pulled out this double sided piece, Cut it not in equal halves and tied some rust-ish sheer ribbon over the seam. That bow is a narrower piece that was tied onto the piece wrapped around the seam. The get well sentiment is a die cut from Paper Smooches done from some textured Bazzill that I had cut it a long time ago. The base here is some Neenah classic cream and its A6 in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.