Bonus Day - Watercolor for Cardmakers

I thought I would just play with some of the techniques we learned and incorporate them into some of my own cards.

Here I used soft watercolors in the background and then I stamped a background stamp in gray and added a couple of blue spirals. I lightly misted the stamped flowers and added a couple of butterflies made with a Martha Stewart punch.

For this birthday card I embossed a background stamp in white, lightly watercolored a section of the background, and stamped text in distress ink on the right. 

One of my favorite watercolor techniques is inking up stamps and misting them before stamping them. I prefer to use the first generation stamp even though it's not as translucent as the second is. This uses one of my favorite, go to flower stamps.

This card I just made for a friend who is recovering from surgery (and it doesn't have any of the watercolor techniques :) You can see I used the same stamp. 

May 2014 Tag

The last two weeks I've done nothing but watercolor projects for the online class I was taking. Today I set aside for making my Tim Holtz tag of the month. 

I like the tiled effect he achieved and his use of trinkets and baubles. Since I have quite a stash (read: hoard) of embellishments, this looked to be right up my alley. I gathered my goodies, grunged up a tag, and was ready to go.

The most tedious part of the tag was measuring, cutting, and covering the chipboard tiles with assorted papers. (I think I should have used thicker chipboard to give the tag a bit more dimension.) Since I didn't have any of the new shadow press embossing folders, I had to make due using a stencil and then shading it in by hand. 

After arranging and rearranging my elements I took a picture so I would remember its composition. First I taped the tiles to the tag and then I used Glossy Accents to attach my metal trinkets to the tiles. I thought it needed a few pink tones so I retroactively applied some Victorian Velvet to a few areas. Then I used a few stick on metallic studs in a couple of the open areas.

As much as I loved my class, it felt good to get grungy again after two weeks of watercoloring!

Alien in Space

Today I tried Jennifer R's galaxy background using sea salt and white splatters. What would space be without a goofy alien?

This is a quick technique and I think the card with 'You're Invited' replacing 'Happy Birthday'  would make a cute invitation for a child's birthday party.

Day 11 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

Today was a play day with our watercolors. The first video was done by my fave --- Tim Holtz! I used my bubbles layering stencil to create the background and was pretty happy with the results. I stamped a pear that had been inked with distress markers and then lightly blended the colors with water after it was stamped. I attached it using foam tape and stamped one of my TH sentiments in Ranger archival black ink.

I'm sure that I will use this technique again.

Day 10 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

Day 10 was more watercolor freehand. Since I knew I couldn't do Jennifer's freehand painting, I tried Jean's method of tracing a stencil using watercolor pencils and then adding ink from distress markers. I doubt if I will do it again, but here's what I came up with for the front of a card.

The class is over Saturday, so the end is in sight!

Day 9 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

I AM FINALLY CAUGHT UP AND ON SCHEDULE!!!  Although I know there is no time limit to complete this online class, it's much more fun to be able to post our cards the day that they are assigned.

First of all let me preface this by saying that I have absolutely no innate artistic ability!!!  Unfortunately when I draw or paint freehanded, my results look exactly the same as they did when I was in grade school. It's true! The style is unmistakably mine and remains unchanged over these many years. However today's examples weren't too intimidating and were pretty basic so I dove in headfirst.

The card you see uses Jennifer's splashing and splattering method. I made a big mess and had to remove quite of bit of stray paint from unwanted areas, but all in all it's recognizable (isn't it?) as a tree. I found that the cheapy brush that comes with a kiddy paint set worked the best for this splattering. 

Day 8 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

Day 8 has had my favorite techniques so far.  It really helps if you have the same stamp used in the video or something quite similar. That way the step by step instructions don't have to be modified (or leave us totally lost!). 

Tasnim's beautiful flower was an inspiration, and the water on water process has been one of the more successful for me. I should have heeded her advice to weigh down the piece before mounting it to the card, but I was too impatient to wait!

I also really enjoyed watching Dawn's process which I tried to recreate here. I think I should have left it alone without attempting to do the background. It was really prettier before I added mine so maybe I will try it again (when I'm not so busy trying to keep up with our daily homework).

I'm going to save this card and give it to my husband next month for our anniversary. This piece also warped despite the amount of adhesive I laid down. Hope I can get it flattened more after it's already attached!

Day 7 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

I have spent the entire day in my craft room trying to catch up on my watercolor homework. I have hundreds of stamps and closets and drawers full of supplies. However, I didn't have anything that worked for Dawn's technique today. To try and get passable leaves I used a die and cut foam. My foam was too thick so I broke one of my acrylic plates. Luckily I had new ones. I inked up the foam faux leaves stamp first, and I guess the results are passable. However, I absolutely HATE the results I got from my dumb flower stamp (but it was the closest I could find).  I am embarrassed to post it -----but here it is.

Day 6 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

Christina made the cutest card for Day 6! It was really fun making a cute card for a change. I wanted to find a cute image that would make someone smile. I think my whimsical goldfish might do the trick!

Day 5 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

I was amazed at Swarup's technique of stamping an image in Distress, then using pan watercolor to create a piece that looked totally original. I have spent hours trying to perfect her technique but still am not satisfied with my results. However I will continue to practice in hopes of achieving better results!

Day 4 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

There wasn't much time to craft today, so I only tried Shari's technique using distress markers. I had done similar watercolor stamping before, but I used her suggestion of letting the stamp remain on the paper longer so that the water soaks in. Unlike Shari, I like the first generation of my stamping, but I posted the second generation here for comparison. I also applied marker directly to an acrylic block, spritzed it, stamped it in colors similar to my flower, then used a Martha Steward punch to create the butterfly.

second generation stamping

The Last of the Mothers Day Cards

Before I began my Day 3 homework, I had to finish the Mothers Day cards I had started. Jacqueline De Groot is my favorite blogger and a while back I pinned a wonderful card of hers on Pinterest. I emailed her and asked the source of her photo since it reminded me so much of my sister when she was a child. Jacqueline was kind enough to track it down for me, and I was able to use it on the Mothers Day card I made for my sister.

I love using vintage photos on cards and found one that looked like one of my sister's daughters (I've never found any that look like me though lol), so I decided to make her a card this year using it. Her favorite color was purple when she was little so that's what I used. I also used some fabric and lace flowers I'd recently made.

My sister's other daughter has a set of 15-year-old triplets. Not to leave her out of the vintage MD, I found an old photo of triplets - two boys and a girl just like she has! I don't think vintage is her style, but I hated to break up this year's theme!

The dictionary definition in the upper left is for 'triplet'.

Day 3 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

The techniques demonstrated today were ones that I love and will definitely use in the future. Especially appealing was the watercolor stamping demonstrated by Kristina Werner. In her video she used Art Impressions stamps. I was floored for more than one reason: I loved the effect and I already owned many AI stamps! The funny thing is that I never knew they were anything special since I bought them on eBay as part of a large lot of used stamps. I also had a few other stamps (different brands) that would work well with them.

The first set of watercolor markers I ever bought were Marvy, so I hauled them out and used them on my first sample. I hated the greens that I had, so I ended up using my Distress inks (plus a Marvy purple) on this piece. There are many things that I don't like about the piece (especially the clump of purple junk in the lower right), but I hope that practice will improve future results.

Day 2 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

It looks like I will have to pick and choose the ideas I 'm most drawn to in order to keep up! Today featured more watercolor backgrounds, the first being a watercolor pencil effect demonstrated by Agnieszka Malyszek. Her background is more muted than mine; I didn't have a lot of luck with the pencils so I ended up touching it up with pan colors. The central image of a pear was placed on top of some multicolored fibers.

The next technique was demonstrated by Jennifer McGuire. She masked a stamped image and then painted vibrant colors around it.  I should have paid more attention to the video because after masking my images with rubber cement, I painted over it instead of painting close to the edges. As a result, I had some of the paint bleed through.

The last technique, also from Jennifer McGuire, was painting over embossed backgrounds (similar to one of yesterday's exercises). I didn't remove the embossing after painting it though.

At least I'm finally caught up and ready for tomorrow's lessons :)

Another Card for Mothers Day

I had a bit more success with Laura Bassen's distress ink applied via a spritzed acrylic block.  I made another Mothers Day card because I'm behind making mine.  I used my Cricut Mini to create the sentiment.

Here's a card that I made for my daughter-in-law and just popped in the mail. I hope it gets there in time because the USPS is VERY slow!

I also recently used a watercolor spritzed stamp to make this birthday card for a friend.  I've been in a flower-making mood so I used a tissue paper and lace flower cut from Tim Holtz's 'tattered florals.'

Day 1 - Watercolor for Cardmakers

There were three techniques shared in today's first class. The first by Jennifer Rzasa was using a stencil over wet watercolor to create a subtle pattern.  I had a difficult time getting my Tim Holtz layering stencil to lie flat in order for the pooled watercolors to dry in a pattern, even when I weighed it down overnight.  Don't try using a heat tool over the stencil itself -- OOPS -- because it will warp the stencil.

Another homework assignment was by Kristina Werner which was watercolor resist over a heat embossed background design. I had the best results with this technique and decided to make a birthday card since I have a thin die that says, "Happy Birthday".  I'm not a sequins kind of girl, but I was able to scrounge up a few to use on my card.

It's now Day 2 and I haven't even started the new assignments (although I have watched the videos!)  Wish me luck!!!