Watercoloring a Snowy Forest scene

 This week Brenda has chosen this video seen here on YouTube by Julia Lis art doing a simple forest scene with trees "out of the box" or oval as it happens. 

I did use an water soluble pencils to do the slightly wonky oval here. 

First layer of paint and I walked away from it at this point to let it dry. this is Indigo and black. 

second layer of slightly deeper shades of the same paints. I was hoping for a reindeer shape to my silhouette and I am thinking this is not too bad. 

added a little more and the first round of white splattering was done with Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white. (which faded when dried) this is some artist loft (cheap) watercolor paper.

More bleed proof white added with also some Windsor & Newton white gouache. ( which also faded away) so, the final card has a bit of Tim Holtz distress picked fence paint ( I think it may be acrylic) and I used an acrylic paint brush to add a few more dots to the finished card below.

The mulberry paper has hints of blues to the grey so, I felt like it blended well with the paints in real life. ( this did not want to photograph for me those blue undertones) the base here is Neenah solar white. The sentiment here is from Red Lead stamps and done with some Versafine ink. this one has finished out at A7 in real life. 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.

Celebrating CJ Nalley

 This week CJ is the featured stamper at SCS and I happened across this Country living birthday card of hers and Knew I could do something with it as the inspiration. I do have that set but, You have to make at least two changes so, I stamped this Comotion light wrapped cowboy boot with some Versafine morning mist on the cheap watercolor paper. 

First layers of paint.

So, after the first layer dried I did add a second layer and decided to add a wash to the background to help the "glow" pop and was lucky it did not turn green but, it did get some funky lines. I decided I needed some sparkle to the glow and lights and such. 

So I added some stickles glitter glue to the light bulbs and some white gouache to the catch lights on the bulbs. I had saved space for that but, I did goof the blue bulb and so, this was an attempt to even them out. after this dried I did add some stardream gelly roll pen to all those dots around the "glow" and the spur out the top of the boot. 

Because I had changed the them to Christmas I did wrap the red ribbon (May Arts) around a couple of corners as a nod to that sentiment and those red banners she has on the corner of her card. I did use the Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die to cut the watercolor panel. The wood grain here is pretty old its from Provo Craft the natural pine print had red splatters. The base here was cut to A6. That's about it from me. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Bronner's Christmas}

 This week Kia is sharing the Bronner's Christmas site for Inspiration at SCS and I came across this Ornament seen here. What caught my eye besides the red and white combo was the sparkle and the whole you could do a lot of CAS off of that. 

So, I pulled out this Sue Wilson die from Creative Expressions and cut it from some cheap watercolor paper, painted it red and when that dried.

I decided to go over the top of it with some red-ish sparkle paint and it really does not sparkle that much unless you tilt it just so but, that is on there. 

I had some happy mail arrive that I bought my self for my birthday this year and so, ( you can see that loot pile above haha) in it was this Penny Black Classy Frames die set and that Lisa Horton Rustic Hessian Slimline embossing folder. So, I cut the frame from the same paper as the words were cut from and I grabbed a scrap of what looked like hmmm, possibly Sundance Felt natural white and ran it through the folder. I trimmed it down to the just the piece of the embossing and then cut that at 5 1/2" to make a band for the front of the card. (the cardbase here is totally glittered red on the front and back from Paper Accents) and I hauled home that ribbon from Micheals? or Joanns sometime last summer and the words just got lost so, I grabbed the drop piece end of the embossed panel and tucked it over the ribbon and under the frame to park the words on. I did after the liquid glue dried tuck in some small folded in half glue dots under the parts of the frame that were floating as the ribbon and embossing is not exactly flat here. 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.

Treasure Hunting

 There is a craft Artisan event in a neighboring town from where I live this weekend and I decided to go to  work late so I could drive out and see it this morning. ( if you're local its at the Merrill civic center) called "Christmas in the Country" and some of the booths in it are the same artists who had some of my favorite booths at Shepherd's market way back when... 

 I have been actively searching for a small metal table for the porch to put between the rocking chairs and I found this one and those 2 old beater/whisks in the simpler times booth. It's not old but, it is sturdy and has good weight to it. The small green pitcher and the gnomes, and the Joy ornament were from the ladies who are a mom & daughter team with lots of has been painted on things, my mind just went blank ( I am so bad with names I do better with faces) The taller green rusty pitcher came out of the booth where they were sewing the pot holders and the Honey was locally sourced by a lady whose husband is a third generation bee keeper. I did see quite a few things that IF I had a huge house they would have followed me home also but, I felt really cool about the things I did find. Izzy approves also :) Hope you all are having a fantastic Friday also. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring a Loose Gnome

 This week Kia is sharing this very loose expressive gnome tutorial seen here on YouTube from  Joanne Boon Thomas Artist channel and I did watch the video and attempt to do one from memory, the first layer of paint was not too bad.

So, after it dried I attempted to add more paint to it including shadows haha.

and that was pretty much a fail. But, I knew if I could just remember what she did I could probably get it close enough. So, after this. I watched it again. 

This is first layer of paints, I did not try to add any shadows to this and I did take a corner tip of a paper towel to the area under his nose. 

So, this versions second layer I did remember to add some splatters and some of them are pretty hard as they did land on the dried paints. I also left the hat and shoes alone and only added in the blues and purples here for the shadows and highlight the light edges kind of a thing. when this dried I did cut it with an waffle flower rectangle die from the A7 set and used some mostly blue and reds Maja Prints to pull this together for a Christmas card.

The sentiment here is from Unity Stamps and its a sold as a single stamp one. I did use some Versafine to stamp that and then ended up rubbing the edges of the tiny star print paper with some DOX vintage photo. the lace is vintage 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 {Home is where the boat is}

 This week Julie has chosen the "Home is where the boat is blog" and their collection of Pinterest boards

Where I found this darling decorated gate on the Deck the halls board.  I don't know why it does not show her board where I found it rather than the place where she pinned it from but, I am not going to fight with the site to give me the right link. 

So, I started with this Impression Obsession gate die cutting it from a scrap that I thought was black but realized after the fact that it was more of a dark grey. (it's been over cast and storming here all day)

And then I pulled out the entire box of "Christmas Foliage dies" ha ha looking for small pieces to play with that card above is A2 in real life so, although the gate is much larger than the fence from IO it's not a huge gate by any means. I did consider making this a tag rather than a card but, as I was poking around I found this half a wreath in the Hero Arts Kit of the month from November 2022 and used that as the main base to the garland, adding in holly leaves from both the Spellbinders Noel & Joy sets, the poinsettias here are from the Spellbinders Holly frame set and the Be Merry is from the Spellbinders naughty or nice set. That tied hemp string was something that almost went onto the pinecone card from this morning and then I added some opal pearl liquid pearls to the centers of the flowers. I did dig out my old Tim Holtz bricks background but, I had this cut and scored piece of woodgrain sitting on the table for a while now and decided I liked how that looked as a more clean-er version of the IC shot. 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.