Watercoloring simple Hearts

 It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge tutorial at Splitcoaststampers this week and I had chosen this video seen here on YouTube by Leisel's Artistic studio last month thinking that perhaps it would work well for people who are looking for quick last minute Valentine ideas. So I started with some smaller scrap pieces of Arches Cold press. I did not use a stencil to draw the hearts just winged it with a paint brush.

 I walked away at this point and let this dry.

 I knew I had this piece too close to the edges and felt like that made it a good one to practice the leafy wreath feeling petals on it. 

In the back of my head I knew there was some where in that video an angled brush used for something maybe the leaves maybe the rose buds, so while the heart was drying I grabbed some non round brushes and a scrap of Neenah and just played at making leaves with brushes I have.

So, I was not getting things that looked like rose buds and I tried one more brush seen below.

 

And I decided the people I am making cards for, I'd rather have leafy wreath looking hearts more than floral framed ones so. I tossed this scrap. washed those brushes and ordered a couple of small angle brushes off Amazon. They are supposed to arrive on Tuesday so, I may or may have time to try them out before this goes live. 

My favorite shape of hearts lean a little more to the primitive side so, I started a long tall wreath on this scrap.

 I die cut the roundish heart with a square stitched die from Simon Says Stamp and the long tall heart with an Crealies X-stitched rectangle die. Those words were cut last month when the Newton's Nook Valentine word trio dies landed in my mail box. I had cut some from the Maja Prints paper with tiny hearts on it and some from watercolor papers. I fished these pre-made sparkly red A2 card bases out of the drawer and then decided I will use the XOXO block on the roundish heart and added some stickles crystal glitter glue on it for more sparkle.

The card on the left I finished it with a sentiment from the Taylored Expressions Love everywhere set and cut it with an Waffle flower A7 rectangle die. The XO diecut sentiment block on the card on the right is up on foam pop dots and has some depth from that. 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.
 

 

Inspired by {Nicebai}

 Hello, it's been a long while. I know, I have been Well, there's no nice way to say it but, my Mama passed away last month the morning after her 75th birthday. So, the grief comes in waves between the rounds of doing what needs to be done. And so the travel time also factors in there. This is the first thing I have tried to create since then. Kia is sharing this Nicebai store online that also has an Pinterest boards seen here. I came across this shirt with the Vintage printed cowboys. And my first thought was, I think I have paper like that. And I fished out this old "wanted" pad from Cosmo Cricket and I found this paper that had the colors right but, no cowboys on it haha. I trimmed it down to 5 1/2" square. So, I pulled out the Wild Wild West stamps from Stampin' Up! and stamped this cowboy herding that cow directly on the paper and added some watercolor paints over it.

 That didn't really go well, the ink beaded up on the paper and so did the paints. So, I grabbed a piece of Arches cold press watercolor and stamped it again and started adding just a little bit of paint to it. I did end up adding a few more shadows this morning after we got home from the round of grocery shopping and cut that out with a Memory Box stitched rectangle die and just layered it over the directly stamped image. I found this sentiment stamped and diecut in the little milk glass tray on the table and my mind is completely blank as to who made it an such.

The base on this is some really old as well SU creamy Carmel cut to 5 1/2" square. I am probably going to pop it in the mail for my step dad as one of his favorite things to watch are the old cowboy movies and shows like gunsmoke. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well. Thanks for stopping by.