Inspired by {Barn & Bunkie}

 This week Kia is sharing the Barn & Bunkie site and I knew before I opened the site I wanted to do something Easter and so, when it opened I started looking for Green/Blue ideas as that is something that appeals to me at the moment and I came across this vase. And what I seen when I went back to the link is it is blurry as all heck so? you get the idea I guess. 

 So the background here is blues and greens ( Broken China & Cracked Pistachio Inks smooshed over the Embossed with Ranger Verdigris powder. The stamp is an old background from Stampin' Up! called Fine Lace. I think it has a blurry almost gritty texture to it and I think the colors are brighter than the vase but, I just kept going. I have a stack of these backgrounds because, when I make them I do a few at a time when I am making a mess. 

And I have been die cutting a bunch of Bunnies and baskets the last week or so and this particular basket is from the Lawn Fawn Build an Easter basket die set and so is the grass. The bunny here is the tiny one from the Sizzix set from Tim Holtz called SideKick Spring set and it has like a little chick and a butterfly and some tiny embossing folder in the set. So, this bunny is smaller than the one from the old magnetic Movers and Shapers Sizzix die. ( I cut some of those as well) 

 The bow was cut from some turquoise shinny paper and the Happy Easter sentiment here is from Personal Stamp Exchange It's number is D2504 Stamped with some Versafine Pinecone ink on some Neenah earthstone cardstock. I cut this with an Nellie Snellen tags 3 die and inked the edges with some Speckled Egg DOX ink. I did use some of that ink along the distressed edges of the green mat paper. This card finished out at A6 in real life. The lace here is vintage. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring Loose tissue lifted Flowers

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube by Nasim Art called Loose Watercolor Flowers Easy Lifting Technique for Soft effects. 

I did not sketch anything just started painting. So, this was a snap shot of what it looked like starting out. 

 

Added more paints, I kept the flowers to 2 shades one yellow and one reddish tone. ( I forget what I used) 

 Added a little more paints to it and did the over daubing again. 

 Deepened the colors just a little more, it was drying so I started to leave it alone so the stems & pods could dry. 

 Added some splatters and walked away. 

 When I pulled off the tape it was a little warped so, I did put this dried panel into the bigshot and left it pressing for about 4 hours. 

Sometime after Christmas I purchased 3 new colors of Paints and I've had the little pans (they dried months ago) on the table loose. But, months ago I had re-organized these two large boxes and moved one of them into a smaller box and had taken out the shades of paint I really do not like. So, adding three colors made it, I needed to reorganize and create space. So, the new cheat sheets are not laminated as of yet because, who knows? more shades of paint could follow me home to fill those holes some day. 

 So I pulled out these deckle dies from HoneyBee stamps and used that to make this fit on a 5 1/2" square cardfront. 

 The base here is some cream cardstock cut to 5 1/2" square and then the mat later is some old Basic Grey Urban Couture paper. The sentiment here is from Lili of the Valley on some neenah solar white cut it out with scissors and inked the edges with some scorched timber. The mini brad is probably from Recollections. And that's about it from me. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. I hope you're doing well, & Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Easter Ideas

 I dug out some Tim Holtz dies this last weekend that I had not played with as of yet and cut the bunnies from Arches cold press watercolor paper. 

 And it came to me as I was adding paint to those first two ( they are I think Bunny Hop dies maybe Vault dies) not sure, off hand the vault dies Have two dies and the Bunny Hop set has 3. The tiny Chocolate bunny is also a TH die from a set called "Springtime". I just started adding paint to them and it The places where I thought the faces should be it seemed odd where the whiskers are for these to be front facing Bunnies ( I have never played with these and I don't remember seeing them used on projects anymore) And after asking online about it, most people seem to be using these dies as back view bunnies so, I went over the first ( very faint ) layer of pink I had added to the center of the ears and where I originally thought were cheeks of the backs of the heads. 

 I did add some brown paints to those tiny bunnies and then I started looking at other dies I have not used and cut out this Lawn Fawn basket set to see if it would work Scale wise. ( it does ) and then I had this Easter sentiment stamp on the table (Taylored Expressions Filled with Joy set) This was stamped with some Pinecone ink on the drop piece of that Basic Grey printed paper and all the edges were inked with DOX scorched timber here. That tag die is from the Gina K set called Decorative Tags. The mats here are both old Basic Grey prints cut from the same Spellbinders Linear Touch dies. I don't know who makes the mini brad anymore but, that aqua sheer ribbon is from Stampin' Up. This one is A6 in real life. I realized as I was tucking things into the basket that "chocolate" bunnies do not need white space for a tail but, such is life, I did leave the paint off that area and I did consider tucking it into the basket slit but, I left it out and then added some flicks of black paint to do whiskers and a slight nose spot. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring a Dandelion scene

 This week Linda is sharing this video by Liesel's art studio ( seen here on YouTube ) that uses sea salt on the background and some White gouache for the seed pods on the dandelions.  

I did not  sketch anything, just started adding the brown and black paints to the background. 

So, I did follow the directions I remembered which were, dark colors, wet and sea salt. ( this is just Mediterranean Sea Salt from the grocery store. 

 

And I was tickled to see that nearly soon I could see the salt working. Salt is such a temperamental thing. 

What it looked like when it was still working. 

 

What it looked like 24 hours later with the salt off. 

 I skipped the part about adding green to the stems because, I just had this brown ready and it was just easy.

 I started the white gouache and what I remembered her saying was that she did not use much water and what I found was. I had to add water and more water just about every other spray of the seed pods. I found that, I seem to be able to add either too much water and no water at all is just too thick to flick its more like trying to paint with mud so, I did find that I had to add water to it to do this. 

 What it looked like with the thicker top layer of seed pods added. My background is so busy with the dried salt texture that I did not add any blowing away pods. 

 What it looked like the next day when the tape came off. I had considered adding a "make a wish" type sentiment to this and I seen that it was also crooked. The Arches paper was cut to A2 before I started painting so, I did trim it down a bit and it's probably still a little crooked but, I think that it doesn't show as much. 

I found some pre-made A2 card bases in the closet with the shinny rose gold base and thought the colors worked. and I left it like this for now. I figure I can always add a sentiment to it later when it gets ready to be gifted. That's about it from me, If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Simple Thanks

 So, its been in the back of my mind for months now that the black glass mat that has such a reflection of the overhead light with camera still shots on it maybe the white one would work better. 

A lot of the shots I take I take them like this off to the side trying to not get the glare from the light. this is something I took last week. And then I had received the email from SSS about their clearance sale was half price and the white mat I've had on my wish list there was on the first page so, I ordered one.

 

And ta-da it does the same thing... so its not the color of the glass its just the glass it self. So I did spend some time last weekend cleaning off the table some more and putting more things away and I ended up moving the new (scratch free) white mat to the other side of these tables that are you know pushed together back to back so, now I have glass on both sides and I am OK with the fact that they are not matching. 

And then I got a text while I was painting on tonight's sample that a lady needed a thank you card for a conductor and it had to be ready today and it had to be musical. So I said only if it can be super simple. 

 I dug out my SU sheet music background stamp and I should say ( I do not read music so, its always a hard thing to guess which way is right side up ) I rely on the paper maybe having some lyrics or a few letters somewhere on it to give me a directional hint and this stamp has the note symbols but up and down so, I cannot tell which side of this stamp is "up" and so, when I went to the file cabinet to grab some cardstock this piece of previously printed music paper had a corner peeking up out of the cream loose papers and I thought even better. 

 I did trim it down a sliver because, when I went looking for 12" brown paper I found this deep bronze shimmer card and thought oh, that is special. and decided to use it for the base and then I cut the top layer of the Mega Thanks die with it. I did cut two more layers of a brown card for under the thanks so it could be elevated slightly. And hopefully she likes this because, this is where I stopped. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Dirty Dozen March Cup of Joe

 This month I have been buried in life things so, when it came time to do this sample I struggled because, I knew it would be "easy" to add to any card, which when there is too many possibilities it just shuts my brain down. I do better with a tighter idea I guess, so I just happened to decide to look in the little bin on the other table of "colored images" and at some point in the past I had this done and in the bin just like you see below.

So, I decided to just roll with it. That base is some Neenah either millstone or earthstone ( I forget which is what anymore, one of them has a decidedly yellow tint and the other does not. this is the one that does not that they do not make anymore as far as I can tell) This is A2 ish so, I decided to trim it slightly and distress the edges. And then I added some DOX scorched timber to that.

 

Wrapped this I forget what it's name is ribbon ( its sheer-ish) from Hobby Lobby after Christmas this year so maybe they still have it?) and then added white gel pen to the hearts outside the cup and the lid area. Added some stardream gel pen to the hearts on the cup. Found this Maja rustic snow print in their Christmas wonderland pack. The base is some Kraft cut to A6.

 This was all glued together when I finally decided on which previously stamped tag to add to the cup and since I didn't want to chance ripping this to poke a shiny brad through the tag hole I found these tiny old pearls from Recollections and did that with liquid glue. no holes. That's about it from me, if you'd like to get a jump start on your Christmas card stash for this coming season you can find this challenge here inside the Special forums set aside for Fan Club members here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.