Inspired by {Zenglo}

 This week Julie is sharing the Zenglo site and Pinterest boards where I found this sweet pin with the blue and pink birds and I just started to grin because, I happen to have a pad of printed paper that has sheets with you guessed it Pink & Blue birds... and I decided why not.

 So I used the largest die in the Pinkfresh notched corner frames set to trim down the sheet of printed paper that came off the Piatek Trzynastego Called Awakening. I did ink the edges of this with some Distress Oxide Speckled egg ink and then used some memories Hero Arts soft sage ink with the Impression Obsession Hello Spring sentiment stamp directly on the paper. The base under this is the Neenah saw grass cardstock finished out at A6. I though the birds needed just a little pop from the background so I did under line them in the place you would normally put a shadow when painting with a white gel pen line. I think it pops the birds a little more in real life as these colors are a little darker on this computer screen than the card looks to me. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by. 

Tulips Continued

 So, I've been adding layers of paint to the stamped tulips off and on for days. and this morning it looked like this

 

 And I thought about it and thought you know, you may as well finish this off into something. I had this pad of paper from a company called Piatek Trzynastego "awakening" and I decided to pull out this green distressed text paper and I cut a hole in the center ish of it trimmed down to just under 6" square to work as a window frame for the tulips. ( Club scrap ) 

 This is actually a soft pale minty type green in real life. The colors are off between the iPhone camera and my DSLR so. I also found that the spellbinders tape I use to hold dies down on paper to cut it decided to tear the top layer off this paper when I removed it. and I thought about it and decided that I did not really want to find a vertical sentiment but, I had this other tulip set out on the table from Hero Arts and it had a Happy Birthday in it So, I used that for the sentiment on the paper and just decided to ink the edges of this printed paper with some DOX bundled sage ink. ( it picks up a bit of the yellowish green in the stems in real life) 

 I am debating roughing up some more of the edges as the inked white space in the "holes" is kind of obvious where my fingers hit it and pulled the paper apart more. might just stick some glue in there and press it flat again. I also added some shadows under the petals and some dots of green paint over the grey ink "splatter" in the stamped image part of it. I am thinking this turned out better than I had hoped with the adding the paint in layers over time. I am slightly curious how many layers of paint was on the painting that partial tutorial had in reality but, not curious enough to pay to know. Its just one of those odd moment thoughts as the reds in her crevices are nearly black they are so deep to me when I loop at it. I think I am going to try this again with some tulip stamps that have more open space and less definition on them to see. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Elephant Stock}

 Hello & Happy Spring This last weekend of March this year Amy has chosen the Elephant Stock site for inspiration at Splitcoaststampers and I seen so many cute things that I finally had to stop looking it was such a deep well of eye candy. I decided to use this Joy sign with a bunny and flowers as my jump start.

 

 I knew I had this Penny Black Immense Joy die and I decided to cut it from some thin 90# watercolor paper by Artist loft. ( I grabbed this pad because it was on sale and did not notice the weight.) flimsy for painting on but, works OK for die cutting and stacking. The Joy was cut 3 times and glued together. After some debate and running out of time I decided to leave that as it was and focused on bunny dies. This particular one is called Rabbit from Gummiapan and I did cut it twice from the same watercolor paper and then added just a smidge of Daniel Smith watercolor to it, to bring out the details the die has. Wanting to add some soft flowers I pulled this page off of a pad from Hobby Lobby I picked up last weekend called Distressed Florals. I did trim it down to be slightly smaller than A2 in real life and just inked the cut edges with some speckled egg DOX ink. The base here is a pre made 49 & Market cardbase that is probably a Christmas one but, the colors worked so, all that is left to do to this is line the inside of the card where the note gets written as this cardbase is on the thin side to my fingers. 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 an Abstract tree with flowers

 This week Suz is sharing a Paul Clark video seen here on YouTube. Called How to paint a spring garden Scene. So I used some Arches Cold press paper and Daniel Smith paints. 

I realized as I started the yellow into the wash that the pencil was going to dissolve and the only thing I had tried to sketch was the tree trunk.

 So, I did watch the video and I really could not remember what came after the yellow in the sky if it was the purple flowers, the grass or the tree trunk. So, I just kept painting as I knew I probably would not end up with something that looked too much like his painting and I knew I had to keep going to keep it moist. 

 So I started in with the trunk and did remember the drag the end of the brush through the paint detail.

 So I added in some tulips to the background and then more grass.

 More splatters in the purples, more tulips, more grass. misted the paper some more as it was drying pretty quickly by this time.

 Decided to add a third kind of abstract flower that was a combination of red and purple. more splatters etc.

 more of the same.

 I did add more splatters which did not do much so, I ended up dropping in the paint where I wanted some darks.

Tried adding some yellow tulips and more drops of paint to the dark red-ish purple flowers at the bottom.added some darker colors to the edges. 

Tried to add some dark to the edges of the paper as it was so faded. and added more to the edges of the branches and such. I did start to wonder if this would have turned out better on Rough texture paper ( I have some but, it was handy to reach for just the cold press. I have let this sit aside to dry and see what happens when it is dry. 

 What it dried like. I am not so sure I have an idea for this yet so, its just loose paper still. I am thinking I like how the purple flower layers dried and maybe this will work cut down smaller than this someday. Not sure yet. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 

Odds and Ends

 A while back one of the Clean and simple challenge was to do spring and I happened to start adding more watercolor paints over the top of the (marker?) color to this previously started and set aside Penny Black snail and then when it was finished I decided it was not really all that Clean looking with that printed paper. So, I never linked it up.

I fished that sentiment out of one of the envelopes in the drawer so, I am not sure who makes it off hand.but it was die cut with a spellbinders labels trio die. The snail panel was probably cut with a Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle but, I do have similar stitches from one of the UK companies that has a set in A6 size so, one of those your guess is as good as mine now as to which one it was. That textured printed paper I think is Die cuts with a view. 

 

This is a little bitty gift sack that has an Tag for J for Easter this year. The butterfly is a sticker that she gave me, the tiny tag I sprayed with some shimmery paint spray a long time ago, That gold ribbon is probably Offray and the black hemp string is maybe lawn fawn? ( once you take the wrapper off its hard to say anymore) The tiny J tag was done a long time ago I have a little plastic envelope of letters I use frequently die cut in it and this was fished out of there the color of the tag was a nearly perfect match to the purple flowers on the tissue paper. That's about it from me, Hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

Bunny Basket

 This week Pam has asked for Easter Bunnies for the clean and simple challenge and I have the Stampassions Missy Bunny being painted on the table but, I know I want her to become a little bit frilly in the end as that's what I did with Mr. Daper bunny a week or two ago so... I started looking through bunny stamps I have collected and not stamped and this Whipper Snapper Designs Basket bunny trio won. I stamped it with some versafine on Arches cold press watercolor paper.

 And added some pale washes of Daniel Smith paints to it, I did add some white gouache straight from the tube after the watercolors dried. I wanted to add some kind of a stitched pattern to the panel but, I had cut it in a fairly rectangular shape so, my circle dies were not working ( they were already on the table haha) and then I decided to use this Penny Black zig zag stitched die and I wanted it cut more to the image than having so much white space, so I cut it twice lining it up in the cut lines of the vertical sides so that I could get the zig zag pattern across the bottom of the image. 

I spent some time poking around in my printed papers I almost thought about making the whole card front a pattern to be simple but, I kind of really like this soft seafoam colored cardstock ( a lot like A Lot haha) so, I trimmed down this piece of Bo Bunny plaid to be a "ribbon" haha. I added the clearly besotted (message me) sentiment directly on the cardfront with some pinecone ink as I had inked the edges of the painted panel with some DOX vin. photo ink. ( I hardly ever put that pad away) And that's about it from me, if you'd like to participate in this challenge you can find the details here. thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Kristina's gallery}

 This week Nancy has chosen Kristina's gallery where I seen some pretty cute House Mouse cards among other things but, I was in the mood to color spring flowers so... I ended up coming back to this pretty spring rose card. 

So I started out stamping this Paper Parachute tulip basket stamp on some Studio Loft watercolor paper with Versafine ink as the blooms are pretty small in real life so, I knew it was not going to take an extreme amount of water to color this. 

First layers of Daniel Smith watercolor paints. 

adding more along with some shadows. I had a hard time trying to decide where the leaves were in the center of the cluster so, I eventually just made the centers between the things I could identify a soft green wash.

 I just kept adding more paint to it every time it dried in between helping hubs with some two people parts to the new greenhouse assembly and so, I am pretty tickled with it in the end. I did also paint that frame and cut it out with scissors. I used some Distress Oxide vintage photo ink on the scissor cut edges of this panel and the textured embossed scrap seen below on the card as well.

 That corrugate is the drop piece from the Snow lady baker card I did for the IC this week and the bottom texture is the drop piece from the Watercolor challenge card coming live in a few days. One thing on her card was some gems in the one corner so, I moved some sheer ribbon into a knot in the other corner and left off the sentiment. I have not decided yet if this is going to be an Easter or a Mother's day card but, I am thinking I will just put the sentiment on the inside when it goes out. That's about it from me, Hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy Lavender

 I recently had some happy mail, I mentioned that right? one of the stamp sets that came is from Picket Fence Studios called fresh lavender stems. 

So I stamped one of the images with the water pitcher as a vase with some Versafine Morning mist ink on Arches hot press watercolor paper (smooth) this paper is not quite white in real life it has a creamy tone to it and this is first round of paints. (last night) then this morning I had seen there was a dots or doodles challenge and thought as I was adding more paint to it this afternoon to add a few flicks of paint around the flowers for "dots" and then when I went to upload it I seen the challenge really was to use ink to make dots and or doodles so. I did not link this up to that. 

The base is some SU wisteria cardstock cut to A2, that lace is vintage. the photocorners were cut from textured bazzill scraps 15-20? years ago and I am guessing that is a hand held punch ( that I probably gave away years ago when dies came out, they are so much easier on your hands right?) but, I have little zip lock baggies of such punchies in my color embellishment boxes in the closet so, I used them. The sentiment here is from the Ellen Hutson warm fuzzies set. Interestingly enough they have re opened their store as an "Amazon" store so, I had an email from them that there was a new release out on Amazon the other day. I did not see this particular stamp set in the line up for sale there though. That's about it from me, Hope you are having a happy Friday Also. thanks for stopping by.

Easter Tulips

 I've been wanting to color some things for spring and or Easter and I opened up one of the drawers of Flower stamps a couple of days ago and started out with this old one from Stamps Happen.

 I decided to do the background in shades of browns as when I bought this stamp ( used on eBay years ago) the scripty "tulip" words were not visible in the photo of the index art to my eye. I can see them now but, they were a surprise to me when the stamp arrived so, this is the first time this stamp has seen ink in my space.

 So I seriously added more browns to that background every time it dried for a couple of days.

I ended up finishing this with some coral-ish crocheted looking lace and tied on a Stampin' up sentiment on a justrite tag die with some aqua lawn fawn hemp string. the Stripe printed paper is very vintage and from My Minds Eye. That has some foam tape under it from the base which is A7 in real life. It just struck me funny how forward the tulip print is for my eye on this and I really don't care for it all that much. I did have fun adding shadows to the leaves and stems though. The tulips themselves were hard to decide where the shadows should be and or the colors. That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.
 

Mr. Dapper Bunny

 Angie is hosting the Free for all this week at Splitcoaststampers and when I was working on uploading my Snowman Friends card I seen that she was asking for Bunnies, Chicks and maybe one other spring critter you could do and I thought I have not colored this bunny in a long time. So I dug him out. This is Mr. Dapper Bunny from Stampassions Designed by Dianna Marcum. I do have the clear sets that came out from Adornit not too long ago but, When I have a stamp on a wood block that I love the art of I tend to use those and then glance at the colors ideas on the index sticker. (less stress I think) 

I started with stamping him on some Arches cold press cotton watercolor paper with Morning mist versafine ink and adding pale washes of color to his fur. I did drop in some very watered down coral/salmon colored pinks into the ears and cheeks but, I did not want it to be real obvious so, I did it while the tans were wet. (this is a wet cell phone shot)

When I started adding paints to the clothes is when I looked at the block and Thought OK you can do pink and blue. I did change the tones of the shades and mostly left the Daisy white paper with some grey shadows along the edges and a yellowish center. I did think at this point the shadow under him was too wide and I should have stopped it before the edge of the paper and then just decided to trim the panel down.

 When the 2 house mouse stamp sets came in the mail this week this pretty paper from Simple Stories was also in the envelope. (it's called Simple Vintage Flower shoppe) and since it's new my guess is you could still find it out there somewhere. I had found it at Simon Says Stamp. The papers are double sided and as much as I love the colors in that floral its a little busy for my actual taste so, I knew I wanted some layers in there to distract from that as well. The pink plaid is the drop piece from cutting the floral ( its the flip side of it) that yellow & white scalloped ribbon is Vintage. The Happy Easter is from Impression Obsession and was stamped and diecut a while back. The mini brad came out of a baggie labeled Joann's CK so it's very old. The white shimmery textured paper came in one of the Hero Arts kits of the month and was diecut with a Waffle flower lacy square die. That pale purple cardstock is something old from Stampin' Up! ( I hardly buy purple so, I am sure they don't make that color anymore) and This one is 5 1/2" 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.

 

Inspired By {K. Van Bourgondien}

 Hi & Welcome, this week Amy has chosen the K. Van Bourgondien site and Pinterest Boards for inspiration and I had some happy mail arrive mid week and I was hopeful I could use some of it and I found an entire board of just Tulip flowers Where I came across these beauties. I love that color combo. So, I used that as a jump start for these. The color I used on the tulips is Coral from Daniel Smith.

 I knew that in the past I have liked live things as no line but, the other things really need that definition so, this time around I first stamped this Spellbinders image with just morning mist ink in the Misti and after a couple rounds of that I used the Nocturn pad in the center of the image and the pieces of the right side of it so the card base and scissors with that black. and I thought OK you can work with this. This is first round of paints on some Arches cold press watercolor paper. 

I know it would probably be better to stamp these highly detailed images on the smooth hot press paper but, I like how the paints pool on the textured so, after a couple more layers of paints I did grab an Fineliner pen and add some details to the edges of the card and the eye of the mouse. 

This sentiment was stamped directly on the Basic Grey printed paper and its also from the same Creative Day set as the image. The base here is some Stampin' Up! Soft seafoam and the finished size is 5 1/2" square. I am finding that the envelopes of that square size are going for just a couple stamps instead of parcel prices like 6" square cards so, there is that. The more I look at this the more I think it needs just a bit more shadow around the mouse and his hands on the stems so, I may tinker with it just a tad 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.

Painting Bunnies

 I had it in the back of my mind to maybe watercolor some bunny images, thinking maybe I would use them for Easter ( or not) but, I used to have a stash of colored images and I really have not added to that in a long time so, either way it was something to do that didn't require thought like when you are trying to fit the perimeters of a challenge prompt. 

I'm pretty sure I have never colored these guys but the chick magnet is from Whipper Snapper designs and that row of bunnies in pots is from Penny Black. so, I stamped them with some Versafine Morning mist on some Studio Loft watercolor paper and started adding some Daniel smith paints to them.

 Another layer, the colors are being inspired by the index sticker art. so that makes it kind of mindless to do. although I am going to have to add some detailing to the little snail on the rim of the center pot, it didn't quite stamp all the way on the texture. 

Then I decided to give the sky a slight blue wash and these are propped up on the edge of the palette to let the water/color flow up into the sky rather then pool along the edges of the images. 

And then I got side tracked because, I seen the Clean and Simple challenge was to do Squares on monday and I like to do square cards but, I decided that the bunnies under construction were too big and too busy to be CAS cards so, I knew I wanted to do some kind of embossed texture square frame so I started by cutting a piece of studio loft watercolor paper with the scalloped edge die in the Waffle Flower lots of squares die set and then I cut that smaller scalloped die out of the center of that piece, and then I used the Stiched circle detailing die in the center of that. ( all these pieces are taped together again on the back side with scotch tape) and the outside frame was run through the big shot in an Stampin' Up! quilt top folder. So, that tiny drop piece in the center I stamped a tiny PSX bunny on that with the morning mist ink and added just a bit of greys to him. The sentiment here is from Lili of the Valley's hex tags set and the tiny brad came from Recollections ( years and years ago) This is 5 1/2" square in real life. And that's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

Inspired By {Welcome to Nana's}

 This week Julie is sharing the Welcome to Nana's site and pinterest boards for the Inspiration destination. And I stopped looking when I came across these rice crispy treat bird nests. And I knew I had not done any thing with a bird nest for some time so, I just started poking around in the drawer that holds birds and nest stamps in my studio and fished out this very old seasonal borders mini #1 set from Stampin' Up.

 I stamped it with some Versafine Clair falling leaves ink on a small scrap of Arches cold press watercolor paper and added a little bit of Daniel Smith watercolors to the image. I did cut this twice with an My Favorite Things Stitched basic edge die to make it have a little more interest. 

 

I knew I wanted it to be on an A2 Sized card and so, When I opened the drawer of pre made card bases I had intended to do this on a white card base to keep it simple but, the colors of this Tim Holtz card caught my eye and it went darker. The sentiment here is also from Tim Holtz the occasions sticker pad. And it was just that simple. I am totally looking forward to spring. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Mackenzie Myric Studio}

 This week's inspiration destination was suggested by Angela Bode Ohmypaper! and I spent quite a bit of time admiring the line drawing art seen on the web site and I ended up eventually settling on this pin of a cute frog snapshot. I liked how the frog was tucked up inside and the colors. It gave me a nudge to dig out this old Stampassions Dianna Marcum stamp called Don't worry be hoppy. and when I first stamped it I did consider leaving it as line art as a nod but, I wanted to color it so, I ended up stamping it on some Arches Cold press watercolor paper and painting it with Daniel Smith paints. When the paints were dry I did add some white gel pen to the eyes and a bit of Nuvo crystal glaze to the pupils of the eyes and the dots and head of the lady bug. 

The mat under that is some old I think Basic grey print that was cut with an Impression Obsession crazy stitched set rectangle and the gingham is unknown. The green sheer I think is Old Olive and the base is some textured generic Bazzill ( The thin new stuff) This is 6" square in real life. I thought about tying on some secondary sentiment to the ribbon but, so far have resisted the urge. I had the idea that doing the sheer camouflaged some of the business of the pot pattern. These colors are once again a little off. I guess I am going to have to figure out what setting I messed with on my camera to get them back to closer to what they should be. 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 { Polly P }

 This week Denise has shared Polly {Peeps321} Pinterest board collection as the Inspiration destination. I happened across this Sewn Easter Bunnies on her Sew Me board and just started to grin from ear to ear because, I had cut a little pile of these Sizzix Tim Holtz Cottontail Dies from Watercolor paper. And so, I focused on the Pink bunny in the center. 

Using Daniel Smith watercolors. 

When the pinks dried I added some Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white to the tail and the eye areas, it was very subtle. 

When that dried I decided to go over the eye with some black watercolor paint and that faded to grey of course.

Now, you may have remembered a few weeks ago the watercolor challenge was to do hmmm snow drop flowers? something like that. and I pretty much killed the paper from the first two attempts so I decided to see what would happent to one of the sheets since it was cotton I started just dumping more colors over the top of the flower background. There was a mixed media challenge a few weeks ago to make a watercolor background and this was as far as I got with that.

It dried like so, if you look close at the top you can see the stems of the snowdrops ha ha. So, I cut off a bit from the bottom of this panel and then used some Martha Stewart fringe scissors to make it blades of grass, then flipped the paper over and added more green paints to both sides of that strip, as it was drying I kind of scrunched it with my fingers like how you do your hair (when its long ) and you want waves. 

The background piece was wider than the size 8 shipping tag I was using as a base here. So I glued it down and cut the sides to fit the tag and then tucked those scraps into behind the bottom row of grass to give it more depth. ( the tag was run through the big shot inside a Penny Black Dot's and Dashes folder that was inked with some Distress Oxide Vintage photo ink. ( the stitched and French knot type textures on it was a nod to the idea that this started out jump started by a stitched piece) I dug out these tiny old mulberry flowers.

Decided to add a bit of white gel pen into the center of the eye and a little more black to the lid. I did add some Honey Bee Stamps vintage pearls to the mulberry flowers and a snip of Vintage lace across the bottom. The Gold shimmer and pink gingham ribbons are unknown off the top of my head. The cottontail die is up on foam pop dots on the tag and I did add a smidge more blue paint to the bow tie to give it some illusion of folds. 

The little justrite / spellbinders tag was tied on with some natural hemp string and inked with the DOX vintage photo ink also. All in all I am pretty tickled with how this turned out as my natural inclination is NOT do make pink bunnies. And I was impressed that I didn't make brown the dominate color either. ha ha right. If you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.