Coloring Tips

 This week as I began working on my card for Color Throwdown #738, I considered just using the colors given without any highlights. I started watercoloring the flower petals on the background with Mustard Seed Distress Ink. As I got the flowers done, they felt flat. Even though they are more whimsical instead of realistic, I just did not like the flat feel. 

I went back with Fossilized Amber Distress Ink and added shading on the petals and then finished the card background with Shabby Shutters and Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink. Even though they were not lifelike flowers the additional shading brought depth to the images. 

The Sentiment and the flowers were all stamped with Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide and clear embossed. I added shading to the fussy cut sentiment with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. I finished the card with sequins and pearls from Lucy's Cards. 

Next time you feel like your card is feeling flat, go back and add shading and highlights. This is possible with watercoloring, using colored pencils, and even by adding a darker color beneath die-cuts. Just a little bit of extra shading & depth adds so much to your  card and keeps it from falling flat.

Masculine card

 I don't make a lot of masculine cards, even though I live in a household with all guys. Today's card uses blue, rust, and brown and is inspired by this week's Color Throwdown #735.

For this card, I stamped Hero Arts Alphabet Background (ST501) stamp onto a piece of cold press watercolor cardstock using Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide Ink. Since cold press watercolor cardstock has a slightly bumpy texture I repeatedly stamped the stamp using my Misti stamp press until I was happy with the result. I then ink blended Stormy Sky Distress Ink over the entire background. To add rust and brown to this card, I smooshed Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain Distress Ink onto my craft mat and then used water and a small paintbrush to add color to the background. When I added the Distress watercolor it moved and picked up the blue, leaving behind the brown and rust. I love how it turned out and I want to try it with other background stamps and color schemes. I matted the blue background onto a piece of brown cardstock & then I added brown brads, both are from my stash.

For my sentiment, I used Ground Espresso Oxide Ink to stamp the Simon Says Stamp You (SSS101211) sentiment & then I used Walnut Stain and Antique Linen Distress Ink to blend over the sentiment. The die-cut sentiment was splattered with Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls and added to the card using foam adhesive. I also added cream colored thread, sandwiching it between the background piece and sentiment piece so I didn't need any more adhesive. I finished the card with a few iridescent sequin stars from Lucy's Cards Ocean Adventure Sparkly Shaker mix.

Excited to put this card in one of my boys' hands soon. I tell them all the time how proud I am of them and how much I love them, but sometimes having something tangible in your hands makes you feel even more special. Thanks for stopping by!

Nature Inspired Cards

 Today's cards started with The Color Throwdown #734 color inspiration.

Shades of green, brown, and cream are some of my favorites in nature and also in my creative life. I went looking for an older Hero Arts woodblock stamp as my jumping-off point for my cards this week and in the process of digging through my woodblock stamp drawer, I found a number of other woodblock stamps I love and had forgotten about. I love when I find "new" things in my stash!!

 

For my first card, I used the Hero Arts Heart Winged Butterfly woodblock stamp (F5158 circa 2009) stamped in Distress Oxide Ground Espresso Oxide and heated embossed with clear embossing powder. The inside of the butterfly was watercolored with LuminArte Twinkling H2O's in Lemongrass and Fern. The butterfly's body is a little green metal piece that I used Ultra Thick embossing powder on to give it a glossy raised finish. The brads I used are the same color. Both came from an old Making Memories metal attachment collection.  The background of this card was from a box of scrap pieces and I believe it is actually the back of a wedding invitation that I saved because I liked the subtle cream leaf design. The sentiment is stamped in Ground Espresso Distress Oxide. I matted the card on khaki-colored cardstock and added a few Crystal Stickle drops to finish it. 

This get-well card was created on a ledger background from Scenic Route papers. The gold mulberry paper was die-cut into a frame for the fern and the sentiment. The fern stamp is also an older one from Hero Arts called Silhouette Fern (K5314 circa 2010). It is stamped in Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink. The sentiment is stamped in Versamark clear embossing ink and then heat embossed with Ranger Ink's Princess Gold embossing powder. 

My final card uses two older Hero Arts woodblock stamps- Three Ferns (S5154 circa 2009) and Old Letter Writing (S4878 circa 2007). I started with a scrap of watercolor cardstock & a wash/splatter of Antique Linen Distress Oxide all over it. I then stamped the Old Letter Writing in Versamark ink randomly over the background and added Princess Gold embossing powder. Before embossing I brushed away sections of the embossing powder to give the background a more weathered/antique look. The fern stamp was stamped in Rustic Wilderness and Peeled Paint Distress Oxide then sprayed with water before stamping onto watercolor cardstock, then dried with a heat gun and fussy cut. I splattered the background and the fern-stamped pieces with Gold Perfect Pearls & water.  The sentiment was embossed and edged with Princess Gold embossing powder. Both the fern piece and the sentiment were popped up with foam squares. I finished the card with sequins and clear pearls from Lucy's Cards.

All three cards use sentiments from the Simon Says Stamp Handlettered Encouragement stamp set (SSS101705). 

I love the color scheme and the natural feel of all three of these cards and I especially like that I was able to dig into my stash and use things I already had. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Embossed White Backgrounds

Today's cards were made using a sketch from Freshly Made Sketches (#435)

Both of these cards were created using embossing folders to create a simple white embossed background. The embossed background adds another element to the cards without adding another color or distraction.

I created this first card using an older stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. The background is embossed using an embossing folder I picked up at Michael's a year or so ago. All the stamped images are watercolored with Distress Inks. The patterned paper pieces are remnants left over from a Simon Says Stamp Card Kit. Sequins are from my stash. I love how this one turned out with the little popsicle images as the diagonal piece.

This card is created much the same. The paper pieces are remnants from older kits or from my stash. The embossed background is from Michael's, I picked it up when I bought the ice cream embossing folder. I have a hard time passing up "summery" products. The stamped sentiment is from an older Simon Says Stamp set. The sequins & rhinestones are from my stash, I think the rhinestones are actually from Hero Arts, from their first line of rhinestones they put out ages ago.

Each card has a matching envelope.

I love digging through older stamps/supplies and using up my stash of stuff. It's a really big stash & I feel very accomplished when I use things up. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Distress Watercolor

Distress watercolor is my favorite way to color images. Today, I was inspired by the Color Throwdown #584. I also love the fact that the color combo was all in greens, which is my favorite color.

I decided to make a thank you card because I am always needing to thank someone. Writing & sending thank you cards, or any card for that matter is something I struggle with. I am making a conscious effort to make and SEND more cards. 

Today's card is similar to one I have made in the past, but I seriously love this leaf image from the Delicate Flowers stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. The sentiment is a combination of words from the Delicate Flowers set and the Beautiful Flowers 2 stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. I stamped & embossed the sentiment and leaf images in Black Archival Ink and clear embossing powder. I then pressed Distress Ink pads in Shabby Shutters, Mowed Lawn, and Peeled Paint onto a clear stamp block. Then using a small watercolor brush I dropped and moved color and water into each of the leaves. I finished the card with a splattering of leftover Distress Ink and a spritz of Perfect Pearl water. The sequins and gems are from the Palm Sparkly Shaker Mix by Lucy's Cards.

Thanks for stopping by and looking. 

Color Throwdown #557

This week's color scheme was fun. I decided to go with some ink blending so I could deliberately avoid mixing the yellow and purple together. Yellow and purple together equals mud and isn't a good look on a card.

I also decided to do a predominately one layer card by embedding my sentiment into a background. 

I chose the "You Are Awesome" sentiment from Simon Says Stamp's  Big Scripty Greetings stamp set. I stamped it in black and embossed it on the smooth side of the Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. I stamped the sentiment onto some scrap paper, cut it out and then adhered it over the embossed greeting. Using an older Hero Arts background stamp called Flower Dot Pattern (CG330) in my Misti, I stamped over the covered sentiment. Once I had a solid stamping on my background (it took a couple of times), I embossed the background as well. 

After I removed the sentiment mask, I used Distress Inks in Dusty Concord, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, and Squeezed Lemonade to ink blend over the complete background. I used pearlized water, made with Perfect Pearls and water, to paint some of the background images. I also splattered the entire background with Perfect Pearl water.

After it dried completely, I added sequins and gems from Lucy's Cards to complete the card. 

Watercolored Valentine Cards

Today I want to share two Valentine Cards I made using Distress Watercoloring. I created these for Jude's kindergarten teacher and teacher's aide.

  The background was created using an older Hero Arts cling background stamp embossed in white onto Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. I then ink blended Spice Marmalade and Barn Door Distress Ink over the embossed image. To add depth, I then used the same Distress Ink colors to watercolor all the hearts on the background. I die cut a heart out of the center of the background to create a shaker window. The window is covered with acetate and the shaker well was created by die cutting the same heart into red fun foam sandwiched between the background and a white piece of cardstock. The sequins in the shaker are Lucy's Cards Tropical Paradise Sequin Shaker Mix. The "Sending" Die was die cut from red glitter cardstock and adhered to the top of the acetate. The black sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Sending and Wishing stamp set. More sequins from Lucy's Cards and gems from my stash were added to complete the card. 

I absolutely love how these turned out! I can't wait for Jude to share them with his teachers on Thursday.

30 Day Coloring Challenge

I am participating in The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge, check out how it works here.

Before I committed to the challenge this time (I've tried before, but didn't get the full 30 days in), I laid out some ground rules for myself:

1. To use materials I already had on hand

2. To fix mistakes & live with the results vs. starting over if I didn't like it

3. To try new techniques or to relearn things I've done before

4. To complete projects with my daily coloring. 

After 10 days, I am still going strong! So today I want to share some of my completed cards and a general statement of how I created them. 

I used the Simon Says Stamp Elizabeth background stamp embossed in white on Tim Holtz watercolor paper. The color was added using Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and Distress Ink in Spun Sugar. The sentiment is from Tim Holtz Snarky Small Talk Stickers. I finished this card using cardstock and gems from my stash. The sequins are from Lucy's Cards Tropical Paradise. 

This card started with an older woodblock background stamp from Hero Arts embossed in white on Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock. The light blue is Tim Holtz Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and the darker blue is Mermaid Lagoon. The leaf die is Tim Holtz Sizzix Garden Greens Bigz and it is dipped in Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint Distress Ink mixed with Perfect Pearl Mist. The love die and sentiment are from Simon Says Stamp Kristina's Love stamp and die set. The small heart dies are from an older die set & the sequins are from my stash.

This card background was created by ink smooshing Distress Ink in Spun Sugar and Abandoned Coral. The stamps are from the Simon Says Stamp Kristina Love stamp set. The thick lines of "Love" are watercolored with Abandoned Coral and then covered with Glossy Accents. The heart dies are from an older die set and the sequins are from Lucy's Cards Tropical Paradise.

This background was created by ink blending Spun Sugar and Barn Door Distress Ink, then splattering Perfect Pearl Mist onto the inked background. The sentiment from Kristina's Love stamp set was embossed in white and colored with Barn Door Distress ink. The sequins are Lucy's Cards Ice Crystal sequin mix.

This card was created using an older woodblock Hydrangea stamp from Hero Arts and the sentiment is from an older set by them as well. Both are embossed in gold embossing powder along with the edges of the card. The flower image is watercolored with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and Tumbled Glass Distress Marker. The completed piece is mounted on cardstock from my stash and then added to a white card base. 

I'll be back in a week or so with more completed projects using my 30 Day Coloring Challenge pieces.