Category Archives: General

Watercolor Wishes Stretched Again

My post title is starting to sound like a title of a movie sequel! But yes, I’ve been playing with the Watercolor Wishes set again and I pulled out the Happy Patterns Decorative Masks also. I’m sad that these are retiring rather than having more of them coming out because I’m only just started playing with them.

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wishes and Happy Patterns Decorative Masks

This is another notecard and I used the masks and sponge daubers to make the background. I used pear pizzazz, so saffron and wisteria wonder and just dabbed away pretty much randomly, ensuring that the colours merged in the change from one to another. I was going to just do a strip of the colour but it was too much fun and I decided to cover the whole card. And then, because I had the daubers and inks out, I did the flap of the envelope as well.

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wishes and Happy Patterns Decorative Masks

Since I’d covered the entire card with pattern, I wanted to keep it very simple for the sentiment and just stamped it in wisteria wonder directly onto the card. I used the 2 way glue pen, also retiring 🙁 to add the leftover heart. I really like the layers of colours in the wooden heart.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Watercolor Wishes kit extra

I was playing with extras from the Watercolor Wishes kit at the weekend and wanted to share another notecard that I’ve made.

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wishes kit

To make this card, I did a light wash of watermelon wonder using an aquapainter straight onto the card (I practised first!)  and, once it was dry, I used the stamp set in the kit and my night of navy to stamp the sentiment and full strength watermelon wonder to stamp the hearts. I bet you’re wondering where the DSP strips came from? They are the borders that are left once you’ve taken one of the banners from the kit and used it on a card. I used my Stampin’ trimmer to cut down the side of the leftover strip and then snipped the length that I wanted. You only have to cut one side of course since the other is bordering the banner that you’ve already used. I then used fast fuse to firmly fix one of the leftover wooden hearts in place. Since my stamps were all inky, I also stamped on the envelope to coordinate.

watercolor wishes note

I also used the happy hearts embossing folder to add hearts to the envelope flap. Why not, right? So there you have it – another note card made with no extra product and just using the Watercolor Wishes kit. Have you bought yours  yet? I think it’s worth it just for the stamp set but you get a lot of value out of what’s in the kit.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Happy Home and Hello Honey

Today’s title is a little alliterative (not a word one gets to use often!) and the card is continuing my “use it before it retires” philosophy. I wasn’t happy to see that Happy Home is being retired – I love the Christopher Robin type illustrations. I hadn’t used it with the matching framelit before, so I decided today was the day. I have been through the new catalogue (well, the pdf) a couple of times and I’ve checked with my sister but neither of us can see anything that coordinates with the framelit. I’m assuming that means that there’s a stamp set to coordinate in either the next holiday or Occasions catalogues. I’d say that I’m looking forward to that, but there’s SO much in the new annual catalogue that I don’t have space to look forward to anything else!

So I stamped my favourite image from this set in archival black ink onto very vanilla card stock. This is now the only black ink I use unless I’m doing major watercolouring and need the stazon. The black memento ink has not been used since I got the archival and it used to be my firm favourite! The archival black is a really great ink – it doesn’t run, it gives a great crisp image but you do have to be careful to give it a little time to dry for fear of smudging.

Stampin' Up! Happy Home

I coloured the image using the cover of the mossy meadow ink pad and my aquapainter, making sure it wasn’t uniform so as to give an impression of different depth. Then I used my tangelo twist Stampin’ Write marker for the shirt and the kite. Next I used the Hearth and Home framelit to cut out a Hello Honey window and used the 2 way pen to glue the two pieces together. I really like the 2 way pen for delicate work – there’s no oozing. I wanted to add some texture so I used the Elegant Dots embossing folder and a piece of hello honey which I then glued to a hello honey card base. Delightful Dijon is close, but I’m really going to miss this colour. I contemplated a sentiment from the Happy Home set (some of which are completely unused for no good reason) but decided that the card didn’t need it. I used dimensionals to give the window lift from the texture.

Stampin' Up! Happy Home

The new hostess code for the next four weeks is J46QU3Z6. If you spend $65 with me (before tax and shipping) I’ll send you the pearl basic jewels. All the details are on my Customer Loyalty Program page. If you love the home and hearth framelits and the Happy Home set, you might want to consider ordering them as a bundle – it will save you 15% and of course Happy Home is retiring and is only available as supplies last.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Sheltering Tree

This is a card which started off as a design team card for CAS Colours & Sketches this week – a colour challenge of blushing bride, chocolate chip and tempting turquoise. I changed my mind midway through, but didn’t want to abandon the tree. So this morning I completed the card which can be used for several occasions.

Stampin' Up! Sheltering Tree

As you can see from the retiring list, Sheltering Tree is here to stay for the upcoming year so this is my mini celebration of that fact! I stamped the trunk in chocolate chip and then, after using the embossing buddy, stamped the leaves in versamark and heat embossed with blushing bride embossing powder. To continue the cherry blossom theme that the blushing bride embossing started, I added a piece of blushing bride cotton ribbon (on the retiring list) and also a bow. I decided to leave the white space that remained rather than squashing in a sentiment. I think this draws attention to the beautiful tree as it should. I realised, as I was halfway through this post, that the blushing bride embossing powder has retired. In fact – the cherry cobbler powder is on the retiring list and the crushed curry is on the clearance list so if you want either of those, you’d better move quickly. The iridescent ice powder has already sold out. I’m a little disappointed about this – I’d like to have the embossing powder in almost all the colours. But at least we’re keeping Sheltering Tree!

I must say that being on the Design Team and therefore having to enter each challenge is very good for me. I’m pretty sure that I would have walked away from the chocolate chip, blushing bride and tempting turquoise challenge at the beginning. But now, I’ve got three cards (admittedly today’s doesn’t have the turquoise and yesterday’s added pool party) that were inspired by that challenge. And I’m really thrilled with my design team card – I loved how it came out plus it used up retiring DSP. Win-win. So I’d encourage you to try challenges and not be easily intimidated. Even better if you join us at CAS Colours & Sketches!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Watercolor Wishes continued

I’m continuing in my goal to create 20 notecards with the Watercolor Wishes kit leftovers. This one isn’t strictly using leftovers, in fact, it’s not using kit leftovers at all it IS using up ribbon from the about to retire in-colors! Also I wanted a card to send to a friend of mine and she loves orange and gold.

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wishes and Happy Patterns Decorative masks

Actually I wanted to demonstrate that it’s possible to make very different cards with the kit and just a few extras. The stencil that I used is one of four that comes in Happy Patterns Decorative Masks and is only $6. I’m sure that the idea to do this came to me because there are a lot of stencilled card bases in the kit. So I started this card by cutting a circle in a piece of scrap and then used post it tape to anchor the circle and mask (or two masks really) and the card to my grid paper. I think a picture may be worth 1000 words here!

Stencil set up

I used a dauber to dab on the tangelo twist ink going darker in the centre and fading towards the edges. Then I stamped the image on another piece of scrap in tangelo twist and punched it out with a 1 3/4″ punch. Since I had my circles collection out (to make the circle mask) I cut a circle of tangelo twist cardstock to mat the sentiment. Of course the circles aren’t essential – you could use any punch/framelit that you have handy. Since this card is for Jacquie, it needs some gold – and on the table right in front of me was the gold glimmer tape from Sale-a-bration. Perfect I added a piece of that to end under the circles which I then popped up with dimensionals. I’m pleased about using up some of the ribbon since not only is the ribbon retired, the colour itself has less than 2 months to go!

After I’d cleaned the mask, I looked at the envelope and decided to do more sponging!

Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wishes and Happy Patterns Decorative masks

I did the same as on the card front (but fuller strength) and then shifted the mask slightly and used it as a guide to add a rough stripe of gold using the wink of Stella. I like the shimmer this adds and I hope Jacquie does too.

I’d like to welcome my new blog follower, Tina. I appreciate you adding my post to your daily inbox.