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.

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!