Inspired by {Lone Fox}

 This week Julie is sharing the Lone Fox store and they have Pinterest boards seen here. Where I came across this bird tray and the tracks made me smile but, I mostly kept the them of a bird with the texture and just made a little Christmas card. 

I started by cutting this Sizzix Tim Holtx Cardinal bird die from some kraft ( to be the base) and some textured red to be the feathered area. 

I wanted to have something to be the "tray" area but, decided to cut this TH Bell Jar with Pedestal die from both some Artist loft watercolor paper and then did the cloche part of it from some Maja print with stars. I decided to add some greenery to the branch and some other sprigs and pinecones from other TH sets.

I used a brown fineliner pen to make the face area darker and inked the edges of all those die cut pieces with either DOX Scorched Timber or Speckled Egg ( on the pale greens)

 I used some enamel for the eyeballs. This did dry a little 3-D but, not quite as tall as it is here while wet.

 The peace sentiment was also cut from a watercolor cardstock scrap.

 Reds are so hard to photograph, I know the colors are a little off here but, that is the textured paper they sell at Hobby Lobby if that gives you an idea. The pine sprigs looking texture was done with a Richard Garay Lumber jack Days pine needles folder on some Neenah solar white. ( the base is the same cardstock) finished out at A6 in real life and its still a little off the edges here so I have decided I am going to put it into an A7 sized envelope to solve that issue.  If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a Loose bird

 This week Brenda is sharing this loose bird video from Diane Antone studios that is a quick little painting. Found here on YouTube. I Find loose things to be big challenges so, I decided to start with a smaller piece of cardstock ( thinking gift tag if it turns out OK) and 

I did use an HB water soluble pencil to do the sketch, I did not bother with doing the pine sprig or the berries as I was more worried about getting the beak correct on the bird. This is Arches cold press paper.

I did do this very wet on wet, my birds a little skinnier than what was shown and my berries did bleed into the body but, I don't see any green on the chest so, that's good. ( to me ) I just used what ever paints were on the palette as when ever someone is not using Daniel Smith paints and they say Burnt Sienna, the colors is never the same. 

 

While it was still wet I did end up adding some more paint to the pine sprigs and then walked away to let it dry.

 I did add a little more red to those berries and a deeper green on the pine after the first layer of paint was dry. And a little more grey to the beak. and this is where I stopped. I am not sure what I want to this to say sentiment wise and I still think it will fit OK on a tag but, its really chilly here and that paint is still wet as you read this so, it will have to wait until it is dry all the way to finish it. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & I appreciate the visit. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.

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. 

Inspired by {Motawi Tileworks}

 This week Denise is sharing the Motawi Tileworks site and their banner shot is this snow covered berries tile. I looked through so many of their pieces and just kept coming back to it. 

So, I picked up a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper and cut it out with one of the tag dies from the Simon Says Stamp Squoval tags die.

And started out with adding some watercolored red berries across the top corner and some stems and walked away letting it dry.

I did add a little more paint to some of the berries, and then used some Windsor & Newton white gouache to the tops of the berries and some spots on the stems. Added a slight wash of blue for a hint of sky and then found this previously stamped sentiment that's on a textured pale blue cardstock cut with a Spellbinders labels trio die. The white dotted ribbon is unknown and the red hemp string is from Lawn Fawn. I do like how this turned out and I am considering doing a few more. 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 Fallidays Projects

 I have been stealing some time to try to do at least one of the challenges each day. And you know my memory is not as good as I would like it to be with directions or guide lines. So I kind of think of it as pirate creating. I do read the challenges and retain parts of the information and cross my fingers that the idea that comes to me after that will be accepted when I post them. Its kind of a hit and miss thing, sometimes I get really close and some times I miss a key detail.

 The main take away for me is that I am up here creating and nope I do not need much in the way of cards left for this year. a couple of Birthday cards for next month maybe some personalized Christmas tags for my family. but, with the samples I make all year I am good for personal needs and these are all just bonus cards. And that's OK it saves you when you do hit a I don't have a spark in you to create. 

 My son & his girlfriend have hatched Chicken eggs into Peeps last weekend and I knew I wanted to send a silly card for that, we've been getting progress text shots along the way. They've remodeled a shed into a fancy Chicken coop and all those things so. Vikki Jo has a Farm themed challenge and So, I had gotten out this MFT Gift box cover die to try to do some other challenge and I thought OK you could use that and use some Chicken papers so I did.

The Yellow paper that is the frame die is from the Whimsy Stamps CottageCore pack, the Red barn wood looking print is from the Carta Bella Farm to table pad and those little collage looking prints in the window holes are a piece of double sided paper ( one side is chicken wire) and the other side is a collage from the Authentique Homestead pad ( this is from like 2015) so, I'm looking the carta bella pad is from 2020 and the Whimsy pack is new like sometime during the summer of this year type "new" The Congratulations stamp I did I don't know how long ago but, I did ink the edges with some DOX scorched timber ink and those tiny black brads are from Recollections. The sheer ribbon is unknown the base is textured Bazzill. This one finished out at A6 in real life. 

 So around the same time that I was working on the Chicken card I had seen there is a do a colorful Halloween with a silhouette challenge and so, I picked up the drop piece of that Whimsy stamps paper and trimmed it to be a "frame" around the black cut frame of that same MFT gift box cover die. I knew I had some Halloween dies and I was excited about the idea of doing a silhouette. So, I opened the drawer that has the hanging file folder of loose black papers and I started with that dotted one in the top right corner and I thought. OK that's enough of that, and I gravitated to the other blacks that had a lot of yellow on them. I did put the cat diecut up on foam pop dots so he bumps out a little from the bustle of her dress and then I decided they needed spooky glowing eyes so I added some lime green liquid pearls where I thought the eyes could be. And a week ago or so I had cut and watercolored some of the candles that came in the same TH die set as the Mistletoe I used last week and thought she could be using one of those and then I added some stickles glitter glue to the flame part. That sentiment was stamped and diecut a long time ago and I really thought it was a MFT one. but, when I look at the photos of Halloween MFT stamp sets I have I am not seeing it, so if I steal some time I may go later after all these challenges are done and try to figure out stamps and details. but this one is also A6 in real life.

 This one was done yesterday afternoon, I had seen earlier in the week there is a collage challenge and there is also a Postage holiday collage challenge so, I opened the drawer that has tiny clear envelopes of postage I have done over time that was left overs and started poking around through them. Some of the process shots of that and maybe even stamp names are here in this blog post from last year. So the real canceled postage came off of envelopes I had sitting here and the good cheer is printed paper, it was on the table in that piece of milk glass I keep sentiments in and I don't remember what pack it fell out of anymore. I am pretty sure those postage frame dies are from IO and the button is I don't remember but, it was cut from a sheet that had been sprayed with ink a long time ago as well. the white and red lace is vintage, the fancy fiber (yarn) is unknown now and The red gingham & the kraft ish prints are from the Maja designs Traditional Christmas pack. This is 6" square in real life. And as many things that are layered on it, its a pretty flat design in real life as well. The center snowman postage is up on foam pop dots. That's about it from me, Its almost time to "wake up" so I will probably go start the coffee. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a Jacaranda Tree

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube doing a Jacaranda Tree that blooms with purple flowers by Leisa O'Brien So pretty. I did see that she started her sketch of the tree trunk with a watercolor pencil. So I did do that.

 And I did leave space for the blooms.

And I really like how this looks, this is just a black watercolor pencil & water.

So I used these two brushes to start adding splotchy blooms to the space between those branches.

 I did try adding some "grass" spots to the purple carpet of fallen blooms on the ground under the tree but, I really don't like how that turned out and I did keep adding more paint to this off and on last weekend.

I decided to tuck in some flying birds for fun. with the additional layers of paint. 

So, this has a few more shadow ( darker) blooms and this is where I stopped. and I realized I made this too big to fit on a card front unless I cut it down. So I am still thinking about that.  If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. I hope you are doing well and I appreciate that you took the time to visit.