Monthly Archives: March 2015

Summer Silhouettes Watercoloured

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I had so much fun creating yesterday’s card with the watercolouring that I wanted to try more of it. When I first got an aquapainter last June, I tried it once and made a horrible mess and decided to come back to it later. And then blendabilities were launched and I ignored my aquapainter. And quite happy I was to do so! But now that blendabilities have been discontinued, I thought I’d have another go with the aquapainter and I am now delighted that blendabilities are no more otherwise I probably wouldn’t have tried this.

Stampin' Up! Summer Silhouettes

I used my circles collection and made a template out of some scrap and then, holding the template over my piece of watercolour paper, washed a gentle swathe of soft sky and wisteria wonder. After it dried, I took one of the flowers from the Stampin’ Up! Summer Silhouettes set and stamped it (it’s a double stamping process) in island indigo. The sentiment comes from A Dozen Thoughts set.  I matted the watercolour paper (using sticky strip) in island indigo and mounted that on a wisteria wonder base. I of course lined the envelope in the backgrounds DSP.

I’d definitely advise trying some watercolouring. It’s loads of fun.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Painted Petals for getting better

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I was browsing Pinterest looking for inspiration the other day when I came across a water coloured card by Danielas Stempelwelt using my favourite little flowers from the Stampin’ Up! Painted Petals set. I thought I’d practice first on ordinary card stock before using the watercolour paper, partly to decide on the colour combinations and partly to check that I liked the water colouring effect.

I used soft saffron for the water colouring; I put a drop of ink from the re-inker onto a clear block and, using an aquapainter, scribbled some lines letting the colour get lighter as I went down the whisper white card stock. I then decided that the flowers would look best with the darkest colour at the bottom and, happily, I had put my yellow colouring pretty much in the middle of the paper. I used wild wasabi (you thought it was going to be pear pizzazz again, didn’t you?!) for the stems and rose red for the flowers. I also used rose red for the sentiment which comes from A Dozen Thoughts. And then I realised that I liked this look on the white and since it had only been a little wet, the paper was still flat. So I didn’t redo this on watercolour paper.

Stampin' Up! Painted Petals and A Dozen Thoughts

I then noticed that I’d managed to put a little smudge of colour right on the corner of the card. This was actually a good thing because my sentiment wasn’t quite centred. So out came my trimmer and I lopped 1/4 inch off the left hand side. This evened things up and removed the smudge.  This meant that I needed to cut 1/4 off the top and that made the card more balanced since my yellow lines had been a little too low (now that I’d turned the card upside down, that is). Sometimes you just get lucky!

The skinny mat is rose red and I fixed the white layer to it with sticky strip. Just in case the card was going to warp – yes it has happened to me before! Once I get some fast fuse, I’ll try using that. I mounted this on a so saffron card base. The envelope is lined with the matching paper from the Backgrounds DSP.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

More Zoo Babies

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I’ve really fallen for the collection of baby animals in the Stampin’ Up! Zoo Babies set; it’s been sitting unused on my shelf of (ever expanding) stamp sets for a while and now it appears to be like chocolate chip cookies. You can’t stop at just one. Which may possibly be why at my last class I sent most of the cookies that I had made home with my friend Jacquie. They are her favourite after all.

When I realised that I didn’t have any baby cards in my stash, I started to make a few so that Julia could have a choice. This one could also be for a kid’s birthday.

Stampin' Up! Zoo Babies and Alphabet Press TIEF

The hippo is stamped in sahara sand on very vanilla card stock and yes, that’s pear pizzazz AGAIN for the toucan. I really like the combo of very vanilla, pear pizzazz and sahara sand together. I cut out the two animals using the circles collection and the big shot and then cut the next largest circle in pear pizzazz. I used the tombow mono glue to glue the two circles together.

I then took a piece of sahara sand card stock and ran it through the texture boutique in the Alphabet Press folder. I’m really happy that I got this machine, it is so handy not having to change the bigshot base between cutting and embossing. It will also be useful in classes since we can emboss using either machine.

I wanted the textured background to really stand out and so I attached the circles in the corner; I attached them with stampin’ dimensionals, it adds interest and makes it easy to attach on the textured surface. It gives a totally different look being in the bottom left as opposed to the bottom right – here’s an example from a couple of weeks ago where I put the focal point on the right. I then mounted this onto a sahara sand base and lined the envelope in the sahara sand shade from the backgrounds DSP.

 

Boho Blossoms Birthday

I recently made a card for a clean and simple challenge with a row of flowers along the bottom of the card. I liked it so much that I decided to do the same kind of design. As often seems to happen, the card didn’t cooperate! I started by punching out shapes using the boho blossoms punch (it cuts out three shapes at a time) and three colours of card stock – lost lagoon, pear pizzazz and pool party. I arranged the larger shapes along the bottom of my very vanilla top layer but just couldn’t get it to look right as a horizontal card. So I flipped the card and went vertical; after gluing the shapes on I trimmed off the overhanging parts of the shapes with the stampin’ trimmer.

Stampin' Up! Boho Blossoms punch and Because You Care

I hadn’t decided what the card was going to be at this point and instead went searching for a sentiment that would fit properly in the space and eventually decided on the sentiment from the Because You Care hostess stamp set. This was when I decided to add some of the smaller shapes; I tried stacking them on top of the large shapes already glued down but it was too fussy for me, so I just added a few on the sides. I then glued the very vanilla piece to a pear pizzazz card base and lined the envelope with the matching colour from the backgrounds DSP. This card didn’t end up anything like my original idea, but I am pleased with it. I think I will make it again in different colour ways too.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Thoughts and prayers for a birthday

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When I finally inked up the Stampin’ Up! Thoughts and Prayers stamp set, I rather fell for the tree image. It doesn’t just need to be for sympathy cards and I decided to make a selection to show that.

Stampin' Up! Thoughts and Prayers, Work of Art, Sassy Salutations

Stampin’ Up! currently has a good selection of teal ink colours and I selected soft sky, pool party and lost lagoon for this card, stamping them on very vanilla. The swoosh is from the Work of Art set and I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to help me line them up as I wanted them. I then put the card to one side whilst I worked on another card. After the short break and thus being certain that the ink was dry, I used the embossing buddy to remove any static from the card and then stamped the tree in versamark. After sprinkling on the gold embossing powder, I used the heat gun to really bring this card to life. I think that one reason that I love making Christmas cards is that they tend to have a lot of metallic embossing!

The sentiment is from the Sassy Salutations set and is stamped in lost lagoon. As you can see, the matching liner is also in lost lagoon, from the backgrounds DSP.

See you tomorrow,

Liz