Watercolor Greetings...

Today I have a couple clean-and-simple watercolor greeting cards to share with you. I came across a great pricing deal on some Yarka St. Petersburg watercolors, and couldn't wait to play with them. I wanted to experiment with these new colors using both a concentrated coloring and a watery, free-flowing coloring technique, so I pulled out a couple flower stamps to play with.

Instead of using a loose coloring technique all over, I played with coloring the images more exactly, and using the loose coloring in the background. These watercolors are fabulous for this...you need so little pigment on your brush to get the concentrated color that I imagine this set will last me for years!

First up, a little number using more "autumn-like" colors...

Originally I stamped the image with light brown ink to blend the outlines, but decided I wanted more contrast because I was using a blue-grey background, so I used a scribble technique over the outline with a black pen, and highlighted more with a white gel pen...

I reversed the usual order of stacked die cuts by placing a white cut under the black to add some brightness to the sentiment over the background...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "Lean on Me" (flowers);   Simon Says Stamp 'Happy & Smile" (sentiment)

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Sending"

Watercolors:   Yarka St. Petersburg             Black pearls:   Kaisercraft

Miscellaneous:   Uniball Signo white gel pen;   Zig Mangaka black pen

Next up, a stamp with brighter florals, combining a darker background with a lighter, splattered one...just for fun...

I added more image outlining as with the first card, and highlighted the stamens with a white gel pen...

I used the clear Wink of Stella pen a little differently on this card. I loaded some of the sparkly ink onto my craft sheet, then back onto a smaller watercolor brush, and flicked it over the entire card front. It makes the card sparkle, but in a very subtle way. Here's a better closeup-all those tiny white looking dots are the silvery sparkle from the Wink of Stella pen...

And this time, I used the bright white diecut sentiment above the black shadow diecut for stronger contrast to the portion of the background that was darker...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Penny Black "Jubilant"

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Small Hello"

Watercolors:   Yarka St. Petersburg             Pearls:   Recollections

Miscellaneous:   Kuretake Wink of Stella-Clear pen;   Zig Mangaka black pen;   Uniball Signo white gel pen

Thanks so much for visiting today!

Mixed Media - Believe in Magic...

Happy Monday, everyone! I had to take a little break from crafting recently to tend to some family business and a sick family pet, but I was able to sneak in some crafty time in small bits and pieces during the past couple weeks, and will have a couple projects to share with you this week. :)

The first is a canvas (of sorts) to get back on track for Mixed Media Mondays. I recently purchased some newly released paints by an artist friend, Cheryl Mezzetti. They're called Perfect Paints, and they're acrylic paints with a beautiful sheen to them...colors that are brilliant with just a bit of reflectivity that makes the colors dance...they're called Shimmering Matte Acrylics, and the hardest decision to make was which colors to start my collection with!

Here's the finished project...

Can you tell what my "canvas" is by this photo?

In my stash, I had the backing chipboard piece from an empty wirebound 9x12 watercolor paper pad, already gessoed for later use. When my paint order arrived, I pulled out that piece, and started laying on colors - just playing to see how they covered, how they blended with each other, and what would happen when I layered one on the other after drying. These colors are so rich!

When I saw how beautifully the colors blended, an idea started to take shape...and that's about the time that other life issues started taking priority over my crafting time. So I started jotting notes on post-its as the ideas came while I was tending to other things, and playing with those ideas when I had a few minutes in the evenings.

Along with the paints, I purchased a few colors of Perfect Paints Polishing Plasters...a sort of molding plaster with color...but a bit of a different texture, and when buffed, a slight sheen...or when burnished, a shabby, vintage look. So, following my "try this" notes, I pulled out a couple stencils, and played with laying down the Plasters...and then I had this...

Here's where you can see how different the colors look when the combo of natural light and Ott lights aimed at the canvas board (in my little homemade photo booth) reflect the sheen of the paints. In real life and to the natural eye under normal room lighting, the colors look more like they do in the first photo above. 

I used "Organic Sugar" Polishing Plaster for the stripes along the left side, and a combo of "Cayenne" and "Sunwashed Clay" Polishing Plasters for the tree and branches. Once they had dried, I burnished each with the metal blade of a palette knife, and it gave them a smooth but vintage appearance.

As a finishing touch, I used Stabilo All pencils in black and brown to add a little bit of shading and dimension before adding embellishments on top of the pastes.

And here's where taking stepout photos ended, as I only devoted short periods of time in the following couple weeks to add bits and pieces to the canvas board. 

Among the little burlap flowers and diecut cardstock leaves decorating the tree branches, I added some dark bronze metal flowers, touched up with pink and yellow Shimmering Matte Acrylics. I also dry-brushed those colors on top of the multicolored micro and seed beads that I added around each of the larger metal flowers...

These chipboard hearts were first painted with the pink paint (Peony), and then a watered-down "wash" of the Peacock Blue paint gave me the violet/purple shade for a little variety...

I had painted this chipboard fairy for another project, and didn't use it, so I covered it up with black heavy gesso, then added some of the Peacock Blue and Peony paints to the wings, and topped them with some Rock Candy Distress Stickles...

The sentiment stamp is by Unity Stamp Company - it already has some of the words "blocked" but I drew in a couple more lines and some white dots around "magic" for fun...pens write beautifully over these paints! The pink and blue Shimmering Matte Acrylics were added inside the crystals of the butterfly to make it stand out a bit more...

Supplies:

Color Mediums:   Perfect Paints Shimmering Matte Acrylics ("Cantaloupe" "Rain Slicker" "Peony" "Peacock Blue" "Moss Green")

Perfect Paints Polishing Plasters ("Organic Sugar" "Cayenne" "Sunwashed Clay")

Stencils:   The Crafters Workshop "Branches Reversed";   Tim Holtz "Stripes"

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Fancy Believe";   My Favorite Things "Rose Leaves"

Chipboard:   Dusty Attic "Garden Fairy" and "Heart Attack Panel Small #2"

Stamp:   Unity Stamp Company "The Time is Now"

Burlap flowers:   The Paper Studio             Metal flowers:   theFunkieJunkie.com

Crystal butterfly:   Prima             Gems:   Prima and Creative Imaginations

Mixed media ink supplies:   Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (black);   Stabilo All pencils (black & brown);   

Mangaka black fine and medium pens;   Uniball Signo white gel pen

Beads and glitter:   Rock Candy Distress Stickles;   Martha Stewart clear coarse glitter;  silver and pink German glass glitter;  

 Doodlebug Sugar Coating BonBon glitter;   craft store micro and seed beads

Thanks for visiting today...I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Watercolor Potpourri...

Hello, again! My crafty mojo is apparently on a small vacation lately, and when that happens, I start to reorganize my work space, and play with making clean and simple watercolor cards (which is a lot more fun, and truthfully, more productive, than the reorganizing chore... ha).

So today I have a small collection of watercolor cards to share with you. A couple pieces were practice pieces that turned out perfect for a card front. I'm thinking I should tell myself that they're all "practice pieces" from now on. I seem to relax more when I view them that way, and when I relax more, they have a tendency to turn out just the way I want them to! You'd think I'd be wise to my own Jedi-mind-tricks at this age, but I admit it...I effectively psyche myself out a lot, even as an adult who should know better. :)

So on to the picture show. This first pair is made using a Unity stamp. For one, I drew a brick wall in the background, and after I painted the second one with no background, I liked it, too. So, both became all occasion cards with the same sentiment...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "Erica Girl" and "enjoy this day"

Color Mediums:   Grumbacher Transparent Watercolors;   Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

Miscellaneous:   white twine,  small colored gems,  "yellow" Stickles

This next card is a 4"x 6" note card that I painted after seeing a red poppy card painted with a similar treatment. Unfortunately, I didn't note the name of the creator of the card that gave me the idea, I just wrote "shade with brown" next to the words "large poppy stamp" in my little idea notepad. (I sometimes do this rather than pinning the inspiration piece so I don't copy it too closely.) So if you see this and it reminds you of a similar card, please let me know and I'll edit this paragraph to credit my inspiration artist!

It was a little difficult to photograph this purple to look the same as it does IRL, but hopefully you can see the raspberry highlights and deep purple shadows...

On this card, I double cut the "hello" die in black and white, heat embossed the "just saying" stamp with white powder onto black cardstock for contrast, then spot-glued them both to the twine bows using liquid glue...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Penny Black "divine" (poppy);    Altenew "Super Script" ("just saying")

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "small hello"

Color mediums:   Sakura Koi watercolors;   Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

Miscellaneous:   twine,  clear sequins,  white embossing powder

This final pair of images were my small "practice pieces." I was playing around with coloring and shadows on penciled-in tables beneath the flower pots. I liked how they turned out, so I cut the pieces from my practice pad, and turned them into note cards...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:   Prima "Nature Garden" collection (purple);   Glitz Design "French Kiss" collection (brown);   My Minds Eye Lost & Found "Heirloom" collection (dot)

Stamps:   Penny Black "A Bunch" (jar);   Hero Arts "Things We Love" (single flower);   Simon Says Stamp "Friendship Messages" (hello);   

Altenew "Super Script" (just saying)

Color medium:   Sakura Koi watercolors          Lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com            Pearls:   Recollections

And last but not least...

Supplies:

Patterned papers:   Glitz Design "Vintage Blue" collection (gold and blue);   Pink Paislee "Cottage Farms" collection (taupe print)

Stamps:   Penny Black "Flower Gallery" (irises);   Penny Black "A Bunch" (jar);   Simon Says Stamp "Friendship Messages" (sentiment)

Color Medium:   Sakura Koi watercolors          Lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com          Pearls:   Kaisercraft and Recollections

Thanks so much for visiting today...I hope your week started with a smile!

Mixed Media Canvas - Where There is Love...

Happy summer Monday...it's now official...there's a reason for the hot, and very dry, weather we're having! LOL

Today I have another photo-heavy Mixed Media Monday share for you...an 8x10 canvas board with a fun and *very* colorful background...

Do you remember this photo from a while back?

This is a pic of some of my "smoosh" papers - pieces of mixed media and watercolor paper colored by "smooshing" them into the leftover paints from previous projects and/or my handmade color charts of Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays and Magicals. (On Thursday, I'll be back to show you a card made with the bronze/gold/grey piece in the front...but today's piece features a bit of three of the papers in this stack, along with a few others not pictured here.)  

I wanted to make a brightly colored background for a canvas, and that's when I remembered my smoosh papers...and realized I already had the background in my basket all along! So I pulled out an 8x10 canvas board as a base, and started laying out and rearranging and re-sizing pieces. I stamped the final-choice pieces with a few fun mixed media stamps using grey Archival Ink to add some muted background images, then began gluing the pieces to the canvas with matte medium. I wound up with a starting canvas looking like this...

Then I took some smaller pieces, punched and played with the edges and ends, added stitching to a few, and glued them down with matte medium on top of the base pieces to add texture and more color variety ...

The next step was to pull out a couple coordinating stencils and add crackle texture paste...

Next up, splatter some white acrylic ink over the background, just for fun. Then I added some more LSG Magicals to color and shadow the crackle paste areas once they were completely dry.

Before adding embellishments, I needed to add an "anchor" for the large floral cluster and little pieces that would fill the center of the canvas.  I die cut two of the "Sketchy Rings" dies and glued them together in the center to form one long piece of distressed circles. 

The clear frame in the center is a Making Memories frame that's been in my stash forever...I knew I'd find the perfect use for it one day! 

And finally, black Archival Ink was brushed around the outside edges. I think the dark contrasting edges keep the eye from drifting off the edges of the canvas, and bring it back to all the fun embellishments and sentiments that will be in the center...

And now on to some closeups of the finished piece. There were quite a few "happy accidents" as I was pulling embellishments for the canvas, and I love how so many long-stashed pieces, in addition to the clear acrylic frame in the center, finally found the perfect use.

The "love" key was a recent purchase, but it was gold and didn't have enough contrast with the background, so I covered it first with black gesso, then accented with a couple different colors of Lumiere paints - and now it's perfect...

And then I found this in my metal charms drawer, and how perfect a fit is it? It's an old Making Memories plaque with the perfect quote to go with the "love" key. I accented the lettering with pink acrylic craft paint, then added more Lumiere paint around the edges, popped some foam adhesive on the back, and nestled it into the sides of the flowers...

There's still a bit of the black diecut circles peeking through at the top...I didn't cover them completely...LOL. ..

The metal butterfly was originally a dark bronze color. I had added Alcohol Inks in magenta and copper to it for another project, but didn't use it then. I pulled it out again for this canvas, dry-brushed black gesso around the outer edge for contrast, then added some Lumiere paints to the inside to bring all the colors of the canvas onto the butterfly...

I discovered that one of the Tim Holtz Idea-ology clock faces fit inside one of the diecut circles perfectly...the color was just not right. Dry brushing a little more black gesso and Lumiere paints took care of that, and a couple small black watch hands in another tiny stash drawer add the perfect finishing touches. 

Below that, another happy find...a long-held Making Memories word charm, this time the word "life," the second half of the quote in the larger sentiment charm...perfect! :)

Supplies:

Color mediums:  Lindy's Stamp Gang assorted Sprays and Magicals;  Lumiere paints "Halo Blue Gold" and "Halo Violet Gold"

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "graffiti art";   LOTV "Set 66-Grunge Elements"

Stencils:   The Crafters Workshop "Mini Chicken Wire" and "Mini Chicken Wire Reversed"

Art Mediums:   Studio 490 Crackle Texture Paste;  Art Basics Heavy Black Gesso;  Liquitex Ink!-Titanium White

Dies:   Memory Box "Sketchy Rings"             "Love" key,  metal butterfly,  lace:   TheFunkieJunkie.com

Metal clock face:   Tim Holtz             Fleur de lis charm:   Prima             Chipboard chain:   Dusty Attic "mini chains"

Clear acrylic dotted frame,  metal word charms:   Making Memories             Pearls:   Recollections

Flowers:   Prima,  Wild Orchid Crafts,   local craft store            Pink stamen clusters:   ChocolateLetters on Etsy

Miscellaneous:   watch hands,   acrylic craft paint

Thanks so much for visiting today - I hope your week is starting with a smile!

Smile...

It's another watercolor day here on the blog, and in contrast to Monday's technique and photo-heavy post, today's is clean and simple, like the card I'm sharing.

I had a couple different Unity Stamp Co. stamps that I wanted to combine and once they were finished, I realized I had the perfect Penny Black die to complement the sentiment...

I played with the flower centers by adding a tiny touch of Heather Flower Soft, then finishing the center accents with Yellow Stickles and a colored gem...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "As We Go Along" and "Summertime Bouquet"

Dies:   Penny Black "Heartfelt" ("smile")

Color Mediums:   Grumbacher transparent watercolors;   Faber Castell Polychromos pencils;  "yellow" Stickles

Miscellaneous:   "Heather" Flower Soft,  small colored gems

Thank you for visiting today...have a wonderful weekend!