A baby Boy card

 One of the guys at work his family is expecting a baby boy soon-ish. and this boy will have 4 older sisters so, they are all a little excited about that fact so, I have been poking around in my stamps trying to come up with an card idea for the shower gift. ( I have time) and I started with this Hooked on Stamps cowboy baby image stamped with some Versafine sand dune ink on Arches hot press (smooth) watercolor paper and started adding paint to it. 

last night 
 

and then after work today I added a few more layers. The skin tone is a little more pink than this in real life but, I just could not get it to photograph well.

I recently received a happy mail box from Unity Stamps and this printed paper pack was in it. (and on the table) so it influenced the blue hat band as well. The postage die cut frame was on the table from probably the last time I cut scraps and it happened to be close enough in size that I only had to trim the painted panel down a sliver for it to work. I did leave some space to the right of him to add a sentiment later but, my mind is blank on this because, this baby is obviously not a newborn and so, it may work better as a birthday card instead some time. (maybe for an old cowboy) I'm not real sure yet. So, I am thinking it will be back to the drawing board for me. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by {Macy's}

 This week Kia has chosen the Macy's department store and their Pinterest boards for the inspiration site. I Started out looking at dresses thinking I would find bigger patterns to look at then say Tops and then I came across this Pink & Purple floral dress really quickly and stopped looking because, earlier this week Kia had shared this floral watercoloring tutorial where I had started this peony flower. So, I added a little more paint to that and then cut it out with scissors. After I cut it out I decided I needed more flowers to create something more like the dress, 

 So I cut an A6 Panel of Arches cold press and stamped one of the other Peonies and two of the leaf stems from that same Ellen Hutson mondo Peony set and started painting them. I had placed this in a Misti to make sure I was leaving enough space around the edges. 

 First layers of paints, I did keep the same Morning Mist ink for the bloom then switched to Memento Pistachio for the leaves. This is first layer of paints. I did want to keep it more subtle since it would be in the background. 

Started adding some colors to the background so it was not just white and then I did add some darker to the lower right corner. at this point I started thinking I will need an Anniversary card next month for hubs parents and this might work. 

 

Even though there is some purples in this, its not nearly as purple/pink as the dress so, I popped up the cut out bloom on foam dots and made the card base be a really rich deep shade of purple. 

 With the thought of having this become an Anniversary card I stamped this sentiment off on some neenah scraps for the inside from the Altenew Say it with love set and this Cherish today on a Arches scrap for the front.  I think the Cherish stamp is an old Hero Arts one that I unmounted but, this is one of those your guess is as good as mine deals. ( also possibly SU) 

 About the only time I can find lately to shoot on top of the dresser with a camera is late in the day and the sun comes right through that west facing window so, the colors are a little off here but, you get the gist of it I am guessing. 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. 

 

 

Framed Love

 This week's featured Stamper at SCS is Carol and I did look at here gallery a little bit on Easter when she was chosen but, I didn't have time to play until this afternoon. I knew I need some Anniversary and Wedding cards in the back of my mind as I was looking at her gallery and I ultimately chose this pretty card because, I love the lace. I knew I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and I wanted to use printed papers. ( I have more than I can ever use up ) 

So, I started with the background stripe print ( it has some DOX vintage photo along the cut edges and the base is some textured bazzill. I thought I was going to go more browns than black and cream but, I found this frilly paper in an Authentique pad and decided if I cut a window into it, it would become a really neat frame. The Love die here is from Papertrey ink and I cut it (twice) from some Neenah solar white and stacked them for depth. I considered cutting another layer out of a glitter paper and decided to just trace along the inside edges of the Heart O instead.

An angled view, I did use some lace along the bottom edge and its not as large but, I thought it had a similar shape to the tips of it as Carols. I think I will add the rest of the words to the inside when its time to gift out the card and it could go either way in my head at the moment, Wedding or Anniversary. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by.
 

Watercoloring Fireworks

 This week Kia is sharing this video seen here on YouTube on painting fireworks with watercolors from Bethany Thiele. This starts with tape down your paper and do a sketch for the horizion/ground at the bottom of the scene.

There are a lot of layers to the painting so, there is a lot of add a layer and wait for it to dry from what I remembered and so, I did tape mine down. ( this does not last long for me in most of these photos its cropped to the edge of the tape and that tape is flapping in the wind above the chipboard it's taped to ha ha.

So, I had an idea about what I remembered and started with a layer of paints in the sky and the center of the ground.

a little more paints.

My biggest memory of the video at this point was there was a lot of layering darker colors to the corners.

You are seeing Daniel smith watercolors here on some Arches cold press. I could not remember exactly when the white crayon was supposed to be used so, I decided to do it here before I forgot. I think maybe the paint was supposed to be more dry as I got trails in the paint with mine haha.

So more paint, and I did introduce some black to the horizon line and the top two corners.

Here I decided to add in some white Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white to the bursts of light.

This is where I went off the rails, I started adding some color of the (what I remembered the colors being) of the bursts to the sky in between the white. and it looked odd so I went back and started re watching the video. if you have not done that yet, don't do this like this. that color is supposed to be on the white streaks haha.

So more sky colors went in between the bursts. and I was trying to be careful and not make a muddy sky. ( I had a lot of purple under that yellow and went over the yellow with more purple..

More white went back over the layers of color in the bursts as the previous layers had been buried. And at this point it's drying again so, I am planning to try to add some color to those bursts and stop before I paint a hole in the cotton. 

So, I pulled the tape off to see if I could see besides the obvious more things to fix. And I did end up adding more white and more purple to the centers of the bursts even after the card was on a base. 

The sentiment here I want to say is Savvy Stamps. its on a piece of Neenah cut with a Simon says stamp sentiment strip die. That textured purple is some really old Bazzill. and this is A6 in real life. I am debating adding stickles glitter glue or a shiny gel pen to this for some sparkle but, so far its just a painted scene. You can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {deluxe modern design}

 This week Kia is sharing the Deluxe Modern Design site and pinterest boards collection. And the more I looked around at the site the more I seen Pink. there is even an entire board of all the pink things... I did spend some time poking around in every board they have and this particular home shot caught my eye because of the WHITE wrought iron fencing in the foreground. That struck me as interesting because, you see a lot of metal work outdoors painted black. So, with those thoughts in the back of my mind I decided to stamp this Hero Arts Newspaper home on a scrap of pink cardstock.

And then I grabbed these IO dies that came in the mail last week ( fence & bare tree) cut those, I found the sparkly pink Sugar plum fairy paper from MME and decided that was neat, wrapped some swirly ribbon around the fencing as the scale of the IO gate is much larger maybe 50% larger than the scale of the fence. and then Stamped the A Muse Irish Proverb on some Neenah and diecut that with an MFT banner die. That base is some Stampin up pink. ( one of the ones that spell check laughs at me when I attempt to type it) and This is A7 in real life. You can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring Loose flowers

 This week Linda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube doing loose wildflowers watercolors from Liesl's Art Studio. I loved the fact that there were blurry distance blooms in the scene and the variety of blooms in the foreground. So, I started with a piece of Arches cold press cut to 4 1/4 ish by 5 1/2" ish. and I knew there was no way to squeeze the scale of those blooms into something that would fit on a card front.

So, instead of trying to recreate her flowers I kept the idea of loose blooms with the variety of brighter colors moving across the paper. 

And I just kept adding to it, but I had to laugh at my self most of the flowers turned out to have the same shape.

And I just decided to keep going as I didn't have time to start over again. And then I decided it needed some splatters.

And I drug a wet brush through some of the splatters at the bottom to smoosh more of that brighter green around. This did not have a ton of water on it but, it did warp a little so, I decided to die cut it with a curved cap Memory box die and let it sit in the big shot pressing for a while.

The pink/brown ribbon tied around the bottom is from Martha Stewart (a long time ago) and the Happy Anniversary sentiment is from the Stampin' Up! teeny tiny wishes set. its tied onto the ribbon with some natural hemp string. The stripe printed paper is from Graphic45 and the distressed looking text print is unknown. The finished size of this one is 6" square in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

Anniversary Bears

 Hubs parents will have their 65th wedding anniversary later this week. Can you imagine? :) She happens to collect teddy bears among other things so, I have quietly gathered a pile of bear stamps intending to make cards for her with them and I think time has just gotten away from me. So, yay for me I dug one out. 

This is Grenville & Beatrice are best friends from Uptown Rubber stamps, stamped on some smooth Arches hot press watercolor paper with some Morning Mist ink. I did decide to add some grey to the fur as people married that long are actually in their 80's. This was first layers of paints. 

After a little more paint I added some sparkle gelly roll pen stardream to the dots on her gown and the centers of their eyeglasses. 

The image panel was die cut with an Stitched rectangle from the Waffle flower lacy layers A7 set and its up on foam tape with some Antique linen DOX ink on the edges. The lace here is vintage and it kind of reminded me of the lace edging on her gown. The sentiment here is from Hero Arts and I am debating adding a small flower or something to the corner of the A where it did not stamp all the way. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring Simple Hearts

 It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge at Splitcoaststampers and when I was trolling video tutorials at YouTube after Christmas this one by Marena Art seen here on YouTube caught my eye. I think it was the 3-D heart that most interested me as I seen it and her color combo's. I know she makes her own paints and the colors I have from Daniel Smith I do not even come close in the pink ranges when I am messing around with mine so, I knew it would be different right off the bat. One of the tips in that video is she is using up not so great watercolor card to do the simple cards from rather than using the good stuff. and I do have a small stack of Strathmore student grade papers to use up still so, I started by chopping up a 12" square sheet into two A6 cards and one drop piece.

The drop piece received water and splatters and random mixes of pinks. I knew going into this that I wanted a 3-D card and I did not want the hearts to be perfect and as I was doing this I intended to grab a primitive heart die but, I decided to just wing it instead.

So, it turned out not so primitive or perfect and I was OK with the colors. 

I knew for the second one that I did not want to doodle that ribbon fold for the heart texture and decided to do 2 overlapping hearts instead. these are just free hand ones and you know it's hard to see the clear water when you make the shape but, all in all I think these are just fine for simple balloon shapes.

When all the paints were dry I did cut a second heart out of the drop piece for the Valentines day card on the right and did use a piece of score tape to attach it. I had originally started out with the top heart being nearly the same size as the flat painted one but, I wanted the flat one to peek out around it so I did trim that top heart a couple of times to get it smaller and then doodled some stitching along the edges of both. The doodles and balloon strings were done with an Micron pen (both cards) and the reverse printed sentiments are from Simon Says Stamp. that is so handy I think to just pop those sheets in the trimmer and have something ready to go. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.

Watercoloring a Heart Wreath

 This week Linda has chosen this collection of Valentine/Hearts in this video seen here on YouTube from Tina Williams Art. This video starts with a glimpse of the 5 styles of hearts she is showing as cards and what caught my eye was the 5th card on the right. Its an open heart with foliage along the outside of the heart white space. So, I thought OK that looks cool and I did fast forward through the first 4 cards I watched just a bit of each one being painted before I just caved and skipped to the end of the video. 

I had some printed paper ( Basic Grey) on the table and I decided to use an CREAlies Heart die to cut one out of a piece of it. It probably does not show up well but, that die does a stitched edge along the Heart and I thought it was a "different" shape, not so traditional or primitive. I used a water soluble pencil to trace around the edges of it on some Arches cold press wc paper.

So I started doing some simple leaves and petals trying to stay on the outside of the heart white space. ( the white dots are Windsor & Newton Gouache)

Added a little more and then instead of adding in purples. ( my brain balked at that right off the bat) I decided to do some wiggly grapevine wreath twigs in the other edges of the heart. ( I did paint over the top of the pencil lines and never did erase them.)

 Added some tan-ish babies breath type sprigs and more paint on those petals again. I was not really liking these blooms much but, I did add more gouache over the tops of all the paint when it dried again also and decided to let it ride instead of making it too busy for my tastes to use.

So, then I grabbed a X stitched square die to cut it out and trim it down a bit, it was tapped on two edges with washi tape but, it moved in the bigshot and came out like so. The good news is I didn't lose the painting but, it I knew just looking at it I would have to cut it down to the edges of the paint to get it to try to look straight again.

So, I did that, inked the edges with some Distress Oxide Vintage photo ink. grabbed that piece of basic grey I had cut the heart out of the middle earlier and distressed and inked its edges. The base is some Simon Says Stamp School House red cardstock and the sentiment is an raised faux cork looking krafty printed colored words from Momenta. I probably mangled that spelling. At any rate I think this will work as an Anniversary or Wedding card. If You'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Belk}

 This week it's my turn to host the Inspiration challenge and I landed on the collection of pins from the Belk Store. ( they have one of these in the mall where J lives & it is a nice dept. store) 

at any rate the lady who needed custom car thank you cards a while back also needed a housewarming and a Coastal Vacation thank you cards so, I seen this plaque inside the Store and thought ah ha. 

and when I started digging through my home stamps this old one from Stamps Happen caught my eye. 

So I stamped it twice once on watercolor paper and then again on some printed lacy looking paper and cut the center out with scissors as the ivy border just did not want to stamp perfectly on the lumpy wc paper so. I did use the color index sticker on the block as a jump start and I realized after while the paint was drying this has a lot of pink on it. So the browns are in the printed Basic grey paper and the close to cocoa cardstock that has a bit of a pinkish tint to it to my eye. I did trace around the sentiment with a micron pen and the congratulations is going on the inside. This is A7 in real life and the challenge is hiding here if you'd like to play along with us. 

Her vacation card I ended up making off of next week's IC  and so you will see it soon. and then after she was told those two cards were ready she needed one more for her old Conductor who is receiving an apple award soon. This one the congratulations is from Tim Holtz, and the music notes are from an old Sizzix originals green die. This one is 6" square in real life. the request for this one was just music on the cover and congratulations. the thing that gets me about this Darice embossing folder is. ( I do not read music by the way) it looks like it has notes right side up and upside down on it. and I cannot tell if that is supposed to be that way or if its just one of those artsy things. Anyways cross your fingers she likes these I did this coming home early with a headache and have no time to re-do it. I hope you are all doing well, Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Minted}

 This week Julie has shared with us the Minted site where I seen so many thing I bench marked as possibilities but, I kept coming back to this simple shades of green with all the movement piece of art work seen here. I also loved all the white space it has.

In the back of my mind as I have been looking at the sites that I am doing samples for at the moment, what I need are a few Guy birthdays and a few Anniversaries. And I also knew I had this pad of printed paper from Micheal's recollections line called Gilded Ink. ( it looks like alcohol ink backgrounds )  

 And so, this was done really quickly using the main sentiment from Riley & Co. and the tiny sentiment from A Muse. with some Versafine clair nocturn ink. The cardbase here is something from my unknowns folder and it finished out at A7 in real life. The dark spots in the ink pattern are really some what looksl ike gold foiling. ( it was a little hard to shoot and not have it appear totally black)I am thinking the shimmer from the gold really kicks it up a little into special even though it is a fairly flat design. That's about it from me, I hope you are all doing well. If you'd like to play along with us this challenge can be found here inside the "Inspiration" forums at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring Skintones

 Hi, it's my turn to host the Watercoloring tutorial challenge this week and I chose this quick one from Lisa Spangler that takes a look at mixing skin tones.  You can find that tutorial here on YouTube.

Before I had seen that I had mixed Buff Titanium with some Q. Coral for skin type color and I have been using that on house mouse images lately, its a little peachy for people though so, I was excited to try doing primary style mixes like so. 

 A few trials. ( I lost my original photo #1 so this is staged with more paints on it oops) :)

This trial is using the colors from the tutorial and she is a little dark. 

This is also using the colors from the video with more water on them. The sentiment here is from the Unity Stamps letter board quotes set and the gal is the very first dollar bin stamp I ever caved on a long long time ago. The cardbase here is a premade one with the plaid printed on it from Hobby Lobby. ( its A2 in real life.) You can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us, thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring a Wisteria covered doorway

 This week Linda has shared with us a Wisteria covered doorway tutorial for the water coloring challenge. (you can find the tutorial here on YouTube) And I loved that so much, I started out you know watching until the first round of paint went on to the first 3 blooms or so and just started sketching and painting mine without watching it all the way through. 

 I recently seen this watercolor paper for half of what they normally sell it for on Amazon so, I tossed a couple packs in the cart as I wanted a new "sketch" book. should have seen my face when I pulled it out of the envelope. (those squares its sitting on are 1 inch in real life) so, this is about a quarter of the size of the last sketch book I had filled. ( It's OK, I just figured I would shoot a shot so I could remember that metric numbers LOOK big but in fact are not) hahaha... 

So, I sketched it with this watercolor soluble pencil and yes, I used a ruler for the door way & no I still did not get it "straight"

But, I didn't really see that until later I was more worried about painting the flowers than sketching a straight door. 

At this point I had hauled this to work this morning to add more paint to it during the slow times as my secretary is on vacation this week and I am spending more time there than I normally do in the later afternoon. The woodgrain, window and door handle were done just with a regular pencil.

When I got home I added just a little bit of black to the handle and window and mail slot. and I decided to diecut it with a Waffle flower A7 rectangle die, and yes even with tons of washi tape on it, it slipped before it went all the way through so, I had a really crooked cut door. 

So out came a smaller die and I did it again with tape wrapped from the front corners all the way around the watercolor paper. 

( I did not tape this to anything, she did not in her video but, I am thinking I got a lot more water on my "cottage walls" than she did. So, this was very warped when dry even after just that first round of paint. 

I nearly left this as just a scrap on the table but, decided to add a Hero Arts sentiment from their House stamp and cut set and layered this to a premade Strathmore watercolor card base with foam tape. ( It's slightly smaller than A7 in real life) That's about it from me, you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.