Saturday 29 April 2017

FS534, TO83 - Lovely Flowers


Congratulations to this week's Splitcoaststampers Featured Stamper Kemernow!

I chose this card as my inspiration:



I focused on:
-floral theme
-cut out for sentiment

I changed:
- technique (from markers to distress ink stamping)
-layout
-added back a white panel in my sentiment cut out

I am also linking up to the current Time Out challenge - flowers.

I call this 'no-watercolour-watercolouring'. This is a variation on a technique from Shari here. This lovely sketchy floral stamp set (Golden Garden) has no corresponding solid stamps, so I used solid stamps from another set (Mini Blossoms). I chose a solid stamp that kinda-sorta fit the image I was stamping. I knew this would give me a loose watercolour feel and I purposely did not emboss the outline stamps, so that the ink could go outside the lines sometimes.  Each solid stamp was inked with distress ink and then misted before stamping. Each area was stamped with more than one colour, to create blending and interest.

Here's a quick video of part of the process. This was the second time I did this, and you can see that I was using more water than in the card above. This resulted in softer colours. Also, notice the point at which I realize that my Mowed Lawn and Peeled Paint ink cubes got mixed up!




I used:




TYIC70 - Awesome!


I admit it. I have tag-phobia. I don't know why. I don't know if I had a bad experience with a tag in my childhood (come on, really?!). But I generally don't like making tags. Weird. I know. Hey, I've been called worse! lol!

But my friend Kim is the guest at the current Tag, You're It Challenge, with an adorable inspiration, so I decided to face my phobia and play along!



I focused on Kim's:
-colours - brown, blue and green
-animal and fish theme
-black sentiment

I used 4 colours of blue and green distress ink and smooshed a watery background on my tag (leaving a white area for my sentiment) and left it to dry while I watercoloured my otter, fish and starfish. I used the wet-on-wet technique with 4 colours of brown for the otter and am happy with the resulting shading and blending.

I used:


Friday 28 April 2017

CC72 - Thanks


Here's my clean and simple card for the current The Card Concept challenge.



I focused on:
-the blue boot with a pink sole and white polka-dots
-floral theme

Because my background panel was solid colours, I wanted to keep the focal image light and airy. These line daisies are one of my all time favourite stamps! I coloured the flowers with copics and added Stickles to the centres for some sparkle.

I used:
-A Jillian Vance Design Picking Daisies
-A Jillian Vance Design Perk Up

Thursday 27 April 2017

Muse 213 - Merry Christmas


I am falling behind in my Christmas cards. I haven't really started my church Christmas cards and I've only made a few of my own. I think it's because I've been spending time learning to make my quick videos. So I combined this week's Muse challenge (with the fabulous Kay Miller as Guest with amazing inspiration!) with a Christmas card and a quick video.

Here's Kay's inspiration:


I focused on Kay's:
-colours
-soft-stamped background
-bright red floral focal point
-black sentiment

I started by stamping the background panel in a soft grey ink. Then I stamped and embossed the flowers and leaves and then watercoloured these with distress inks. Because I was cutting them out with matching dies, my watercolouring was very loose and messy.

I really find that using more than one shade of a colour creates more interest and depth. I used 3 different reds and 2 different greens (including Forest Moss, which I don't think I've ever used before - it's so dark and adds so much drama to those leaves!). I finished with some gold stickles in the poinsettia centre for sparkle and shine.




I used: