Inspired by {Terrain}

 This week Amy is sharing the Terrain site and They also have pinterest boards seen here. I seen so much eye candy... but, seeing as this is the first week of fall ( My Favorite Season) I found my self keep coming back to these leafy paper placemats. I loved the colors. So, I dug out these Tim Holtz Sizzix leaf dies and cut some from watercolor paper.

 So I started cleaning off a palette from previously with some warm toned paints on it. and let them dry.

 more paints added and left to dry.

 I had originally thought I could pile on all the leaves but, it ended up being just too cluttered for this stark white base to me so, I just kept two of them and the one on the top is up on slight foam pop dots. The sentiment here is from the Tim Holtz tiny text Christmas with some versafine here directly on the base. letting it be more Clean and Simple I guess. 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 Leaves

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube  By Kristin Van Leuven called "Painting watercolor fall leaves using my favorite trick" that I think the thing she most wants to share is how she uses her brush on the veins of the leaves. Or mixing the paints. I was not really sure & So, I will have some long days at work this week and I decided to try doing this with a limited supply of paint color choices That I had left at work a long time ago. Knowing I would not be home early to try this on tuesday afternoon. I did not have time to paint like normal over the weekend. So, I tossed this sketchbook in my bag this morning and ran out the door.  I did use the first page for mixing some  fall-ish colors. I did not mix the same colors she did and I did not have a pencil in my office at work. Seriously who knew? I used to use pencils all the time so that took me by surprise and I decided to just wing painting some leaves.

 Used the shades listed under the paint samples in the sketch book to get those shades and then started on the first leaf. This was jump started by the purple tipped on on her top right corner. 

 Tried a few more shapes of leaves, and did use the end of the brush to drag through the paint to make the veins. 

 Added some shadows to the edges of the leaves. The colors are interesting but, very muted so, they don't really have that vibe she has going on and that's OK I guess. :) 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 {The Blue Peony}

 This week Denise has chosen the Blue Peony Site for inspiration They also have Pinterest boards here. and I came across this shot of Christmas items. I loved each piece of this pin from the colors to the textures. And I also received the Simon Says Stamp Tim Holtz Stamptember kit in the mail this week. I believe the kit has sold out but, they are selling the dies and stamps and such without the other things that come in the kit. There is a video seen here on YouTube that talks about what to expect from the class on the SSS YouTube channel. And there is no homework for this class but, they did mention that you could you know cut and stamp some of the pieces so you have bits and pieces ready for the class without using the coloring and other bits and pieces. So, I decided to start stamping and die cutting things from my stash with mine.

I used some Distress Oxide inks on Neenah environmental Kraft cardstock and I die cut those things.

Made a pretty good sized pile of "stuff" and I don't usually do foliage like this, I am more of a line art stamped image person so, I was trying to figure out the colors and or definition to the bits. 

 So I decided to add some definition to them with Daniel Smith watercolors. To the stems and berries and such. 

And then I did some of the sentiments. I did not do every sentiment in the set but, did do multiples of the words I did stamp. I picked ones that I think I may use and I started with some Black on Kraft but, then ventured out to heat embossing on scraps as well. and I thought OK this is a lot of words...

So, I decided to see what these would look like as a tag to start. The Detailing on the edges of the tag I love that detail. It did make me think this will play well with the labels dies Tim Holtz came out with a while back. ( I have not tried that yet but, I think it is coming) I put the Wishes up on foam pop dots and then added Christmas red stickles to all the berries that were peeking out around that big Poinsettia. The Merry Christmas here is a Sticker from one of the TH sticker books. ( I have a stack of them and I don't remember which one this came out of) The ribbons are unknown and I tied on some natural colored hemp string around them. I really like the subtle colors of this. And it will be interesting to see how the others play together. I am thinking about breaking out other SSS sets and seeing. but, so far, this is what I have done ahead of this class which happens at the end of the month and I think this is probably good enough. 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 a Loose Autumn Forest

 This week Kia is sharing this video tutorial seen here on YouTube by Harriet DeWinter on doing a loose Autumn Watercolor scene. That was such a pretty preview photo of the video I was really excited to try this one. 

I did start with a piece of Cold Press Arches wc paper cut to A7 and taped down. (this is the background first layers of paint. I probably should have made it taller but, this is what I did. 

 

First layers of foliage were added to the tops of the trees here along with some quick pencil lines for tree trunks with an water soluble pencil and some ground color. I probably should have done more splatters here but, I didn't think of it. 

 

Where I stopped painting, and honestly taping this paper down to the board did not do anything to stop the warp factor for me, It hardly ever does. So my thought at this point was why did you bother with that step? Who knows? but, it does make me wonder what kind of hold the tape most of these people are using. This is delicate surface gorilla tape here. and it does not hold it flat, on the other hand it does not rip up the paper after the fact either. 

 I did press this for a while in my big shot but, its still a little tweaked. I just mounted it really simply to some SU more mustard cardstock and had trimmed it down to A6 for a finished size. I am thinking I will be trying this one again some time. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Sweet Christmas

 For some time now finding one of these Penny Black Gingerbread basket rubber stamps (at a price not in pucker your lips range) has been a goal in the back of my mind... ( it tends to be offered up at close to 200.00 on eBay) crazy right? yeah, that is my thought as well but, a few months ago one went for in 30.00 range, and I thought and over thought and missed it... so, when a second one did it. Hubs bit the bullet and bought it for me. It arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and its such a really nice size. So, I decided I wanted to watercolor it and I stamped it on some Arches cold press with Versafine pinecone ink. and I stared adding layers of color in between other things yesterday.  

 Then late in the afternoon I seen that Keri had been chosen for this week's featured stamper at SCS. and She has a lot of pretty eye-candy in her gallery but, what stopped me in my tracks was this gorgeous card seen here. And I thought, that is beautiful. I had already found these papers the holly is from a hobby lobby pad and the plaid is from a recollections pad ( old ones ) but, the colors worked with my painting. So, seeing Keri's layered flowers, the glimmer of the gold and the big beautiful bow gave me ideas about how to layer up this one. I did use a circle die to cut the hole in the holly print and then used an Xacto knife to cut the tips of the holly leaves and pine sprigs as the bottom of the painting to peek through the opening. The ric rac is vintage and has a shimmer to it that did not photograph well so, its just wrapped around to the back of that print and then I used some foam tape because, that ric rac is also thick and not real flexible like something thinner would be. I tied on the vintage colored jingle bells with some natural hemp string in place of a bow and added stickles glitter glue to some spots for bling.

 The sentiment tag is from lotv and it was inked with some DOX a long time ago. The base here is textured Bazzill and it's 6" square in real life and probably a hand deliver card because of the jingle bells but, I was thinking this could be a proto-type of cards given with Christmas cookies. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Yves Delorme Outlet}

 This week Kia has chosen the Yves Delorme Outlet as the inspiration challenge and they have collections of Pinterest boards here. and somewhere in Pinterest there is a board that shows fabrics being worked with and textile factory type mug shots... and I seen this fabric with hands with texture. ( and I didn't bench mark it or even jot down the name of the board it was) so, I spent a lot of time on Friday evening trying to find it and threw my hands up and tried again yesterday morning. ( I am not looking anymore) but, my first impression of the boards was this is a lot of white. does anyone really live like this? ( not me, my dog is maybe 8 inches from my left leg as I type this and I cannot imagine having so much white. And then I glance up and all the containers for my studio are White hahaha... but, I mean linens and such I guess. 

Anyways, I did eventually find this (which was not what jump started my card ) and used it for a link in the gallery at SCS.

 Why that caught my eye was I received this new Mintay Christmas paper pad called  Holly jolly and it has this fantastic Embroidered looking white on white paper that is swoon-worthy. And in my head I did not want to cover up that paper to use it. So, I had recently gotten this Penny Black elegant frames die in the mail and decided to do an A6 card ( this paper is 6X8 ) and I trimmed one end to cover an A6 card front and then used the drop piece to cut the frame. ( it cuts 3 pieces) so I taped it back together again on the back side and used some foam pop dots on that layer) and I did spin it so the patterns do not line up all perfectly and then I added this really big and I think pretty Sue Wilson die just called "Joyful" and so the words are just White neenah cardstock and its shadow layer is PTI vellum cardstock. and that is it. In hind sight I probably should have dropped the sentiment down a smidge on that layer but, it is what it is. I do like that you can see all the texture to the print of the paper and that was my main goal doing this one. 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 a stack of books

 Hello & Welcome here, it's my turn to host the watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week and I had come across this stack of books by Olga Koelsch called easiest way to paint a stack of books seen here on YouTube. I knew when I first seen it that it would be close to the start of school restarting for many people and thought, OK its not a fall foliage piece ha ha. And I happen to still have hundreds of hardbound books in a library in my home besides the we will not disclose the number of digital copies I have now. ( my to be read pile will outlive me is my thought) at any rate, I love that she just paints this ( no sketching) but, the colors were (not me) so, when I started mine I cut the Arches cold press paper to 3 1/2" x about 5" ish. And I used some flat shader brushes for the most part and one long round for a bit of the details at the end. 

 First layers of paints. I did use Daniel Smith paints in my palette and I went a little Autumn ish with the shades I guess. 

I remembered the shadow on the bottom and tried to add one to under the thick blue book but, it faded in I guess. Added some of the top of the yellow books cover to the edges of the top green book as well.

 

The original shadow on the photo above was done with and I ended up adding some Moonglow over the top of that for more purple tones. I also added some gold shimmer to a few spots and decided this was "good enough"

Found this previously cut and scored blue textured cardbase in the pile on the table and then fished out this IO banner die ( its from one of Anna's tag die sets I am pretty sure) and stamped on the Unity Stamps sentiment and then inked the edges with some iced spruce Distress Oxide ink. the painted layer and sentiment banner are up on foam tape above this base that is A6 in real life. I am considering this as Hubs Anniversary card for next month unless I come up with something different in the mean time. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Color Combo Tags

 This week Roberta threw down Kraft, Pool Party & Espresso as a color combo. so gorgeous... and I kept having this poke into the back of my mind off and on since I seen that and it did not work for any of the other challenge things I made so yesterday afternoon I started by fishing out this Stamp Market Christmas gifting set and stamping off some in Pinecone ink.

I had this in the has not been played with yet bin and I do remember thinking oh that will save a lot of time to have it be one stamp and one die if it cuts it all. Good News. it does cut them all. I did use SU papers and they are not the heaviest weight. the hardest part was trying to decide if the margins were not too off set I guess is the word. trying to line up the stamped images through all those holes at once. the good thing about this set is it does save time, the not so saving time is I don't actually use happy Holidays or seasons greetings type stamps ( I always say Merry Christmas) so, my brain is off in left field thinking how I will alter those long skinny tags as I do love the shape of them. 

So then I decided to add stickles glitter glues and liquid pearls to the scallops of a bunch of them and let those dry. I think some of these will be going on simple little 3X3 card bases at some point but, I wanted to do at least a few fancier tags as I think these are going to go into "happy gift wrapping season gifts" that are kinda sorta still more of a wish here than an actual gift ready to give yet. 

So, I dug out this Impression Obsession capped tag die set and then I decided the plainness of the tag was just too plain and I ran the espresso one through a maybe linen or burlap looking square folder. ( its not marked) and the kraft one went through an SU textile one ( it has another word to the name but, I already forgot) the edges of all these tag parts were inked with some Distress Oxide vintage photo ink.

 I am a pretty literal kind of a person so, I did not add any you know printed papers or things and these still looked so plain so, I turned around to look at the jars of doo-dads I have and seen this one filled with little wood chip shapes. ( I forget what they are called) but, I stuck them on with glue dots as the last little thing. That's about it from me, I am pretty excited that Simon Says Stamp's Stamptember is going to have a class with Tim Holtz doing Christmas watercolor something tags at the end of the month and I did order a kit as I wanted the dies Because, there is always room for more tags in my world. the YouTube video Announcement can be seen here.. I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by.  

Inspired by { West Elm}

 This week Julie is sharing the West Elm site & Pinterest boards and I came across this twisted handle purple coffee mug... and my first thought is I wonder just how uncomfortable that is to try to hold for a while... I take my coffee and comfort rather seriously ha ha. and as a side note, I am not that big of a purple fan. but, I did buy a purple handmade watercolor that arrived this last week and I thought why not...

 

 The mug here was water colored with some Plum Graphite from the etsy seller  Jazperstardust. and it does have a slight sparkle to it in real life. the kitty was also painted with some of their paint the Yellow seen here ( which kinda looks brown to me, I did add some of this Celtic Violet to it and it also looks kinda brown to me as well. ) It's OK as I happen to like brown. and that lead me to finding this DCWV brown corrugate to use as a trim on the pale gingham ( from the maja designs vintage baby papers pack) That lace on the bottom of the painted panel is vintage and the sheer ribbon across the corrugate is probably offray. The painted panel and the sentiment panel are up on foam pop dots here and the base is some SU pale plum finished out at A6 in real life. This image is from Unity Stamps called Pissy Kitty. The sentiment is from their June 2022 "Could be better" set. 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. 

 

More Snow

 We had a long weekend last weekend and I did start painting a whole bunch of snowmen ( most I think will morph into tags) but, I did finish one into another card today after work.

 Seriously, I am thinking maybe happy winter? ( most of my Christmas paper is red or poinsettias but a lot of red and or red & green haha) so, It's kind of funny how much I like to color snowmen... 

 Before I did all the stamped ones, I tried doing the dies from the PTI giftcard snowman dies, and I just do not see how this becomes a gift card holder. ( that sentiment is from the set that matches the dies) and the dies just make two sizes of snowmen.. So, I inked some of the diecuts and added some chunky snowflake glitter mix to the edges of them. I am still debating about how these become gift card holders so, they are works in progress.

 I decided for the heck of it to try "handmade" watercolors, I have not actually done this before but, these colors caught my eye in this shop in ETSY. And so, they arrived yesterday and I decided to give them a whirl. 

 What they look like dry. I think the Cerulean Grey is my favorite of this batch and I thought ( of course) it will work so well for snowmen.

 And so it did, that color is on their bodies. The hats are some DS moonglow. I did add some Stickles glitter glue to the base line of snow and some white gouache to the falling snow then add-libbed some extra falling snow on the bodies. This is an old Buttermilk Basin stamp by Inky Antics which has a # on the block as P4-9081-3L. Stamped with Versafine morning mist on Arches cold press paper.

 I cut that panel with a Tim Holtz deckle die and then inked the edges with some Iced Spruce Distress Oxide ink and wrapped on some SU pool party sheer ribbon that has a pretty shine to it. Found this Anna White tree printed paper in the pack from her Sweet Miss Daisy Etsy store called let it snowman. ( its not flimsy paper more like printed thin cardstock or coversheet rather than paper) the base here is some PTI oceantides finished out at A6 and that's about it from me, I will probably be gluing snowman tags together for sometime to come hahaha. hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercolorings a Pumpkin Still life

 This week Brenda is sharing this video from Jenna Rainey called how to paint watercolor pumpkins with Eucalyptus & Berries Seen here on YouTube.  My first thought about it as I was watching it was I do not think I even own a size 16 brush hahaha... So, this paper was cut in an A6 ish size and I used maybe an size 8? ( something like that) and I my favorite part was the little curly vines out of the stems so, I got those a little close to the top edge of the paper and I thought, its OK I can counter sink it.

I ended up add-libbing in some splatters and shadows as well. 

 So, I had the bright idea to use these deckle dies from Honeybee stamps and after the fact I decided I probably should have gone with straight edge dies as after I cut a hole into the front of the sage shadow cardbase I decided if I wanted those curly vines I had to you know edge it a little off set and So I just started cutting up various pieces with those dies, cutting windows trying to layer them and hide the hole and such. ( the frame is actually pretty thick on the finished card as a result) 

 The brown texture on the top was also cut with the largest dies and then the third down in size to cover up how goofy all the layers under it looked. but, it allowed some of those colors to peek out, which was OK but, still off set. and then I seen this sentiment I had previously cut (twice ) and added some paint to thinking it was going to work with some snowman tags also under construction and I thought OK the colors look OK but, in real life, its probably a little bit too matchy- matchy as its hard to see unless you tilt the card. I did end up cutting the first cardbase in half and then putting foam tape under that layer and trimming it down a smidge so it could go onto a slightly darker cardbase that was 6" square. That sentiment is one from Sue Wilson and 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.