More watercolor flowers

Continuing with my efforts to use watercolor crayons to color flower images, I stamped several of my old Magenta rubber stamps on watercolor paper.  Coloring these is really a learning process for me.  Here's some of my results:

Playing with watercolor crayons

I bought a copy of the new Scrap & Stamp Arts magazine (June 2013) and found a fun tutorial on using watercolor crayons.  Since I have a very old set of watercolor crayons, I decided to give this a try.  I started by stamping some flower images on watercolor paper with Stewart Superior Document Stamping ink, which is water resistant.  I colored the image lightly with the crayons, then used a waterbrush to spread the color.

The card on the left is on rough textured cold press watercolor paper.  The card on the right is on smooth hot press watercolor paper.  It takes practice on the amount of water to add.  If your brush is too wet or you keep trying to fix the color, the water bleeds out over the edges of image and dilutes the color.

 

I found it works better to allow image to dry before correcting color.  If I needed to add more color, I would rub the wet brush directly on the crayon and paint that color onto image.  If I want to remove color, I add plain water and blot the color off the image with a paper towel.  It will take me more practice to become satisfied with my results.

 

I found a very old pad of mulberry cardstock and used that for the background.  I used Cuttlebug embossing folders for added texture on my cards.  Frames are cut with Spellbinder's dies.

Playing with chalkboard

I've been seeing chalkboard cards on the Internet.  I wasn't really sure how make them until I watched Sandy Allnock do a demo on OWHtv on Thursday evening.  If you go to the video on this link, you can watch her make her card.

The first one I made was a little large and too messy for my taste, but I did eventually turn it into a card.

 

 I did wrap some gold cord around the edges of the image and add a piece of patterned paper to the base card.

This card was the second attempt.  I like it a bit better than the first one, but I decided to make a smaller panel for the third card.

Most of the stamps that I used on these cards are old wood mounted rubber stamps from my stash.  I think a lot of people use clear stamps because they make placement easier.

OWH VCMP #7

JoAnn's challenge in the Virtual Card Making Party is to make a summertime card.

This is a very old House Mouse stamp that I colored with pencils.  I think the hummer just stopped to join the mouse in a cool drink.

OWH VCMP #6

Operation Write Home is having a Virtual Card Making Party this weekend.  I haven't been participating so far, but decided to attempt challenge #6 where Julie challenged us to make an Any Hero Card, using a photo that we took ourselves.  Since I have a good little model in my dachshund, Tex, it was easy to get this photo of him this morning.

Tex loves to smell flowers and is enjoying the fragrant Jasmine that grows in my yard.  I will write a message inside the card telling our heroes about Tex and thanking them for their service.

Saying Hello

My mojo is still missing, but I'm looking for it.  I bought a set of Spellbinders dies, called Back to Basics Tags.  Now, I'm trying to figure out how to use them.  Here's a couple of cards that I made recently, with one of the dies.

I used some patterned paper by My Mind's Eye and some punches to create embellishments.  I need to work on finding more ways to use the rest of my new dies.

Mojo - where are you?

There was an interesting blog post on the Stars & Stamps blog this week about loss of mojo.  This has been a frequent problem for me.  I tend to make cards in spurts, so I'm always looking for inspiration.  When you read this blog post HERE be sure to read the comments.

Recently, I was tolally stuck and hadn't made a card for 2 weeks.  The blog post on Flower Power helped me to find an inspiration.  It's nice that it's springtime in the desert and flowers are blooming everywhere.



Jasmine

Oleander




 

Daisies

Royal geranium

 

Dianthus

With this inspiration from my yard, I remembered a technique from long ago of putting punched flowers on my cards.  You can check back on my last few posts to see some of the cards I have made recently.

 Sometimes, my first card leaves something to be desired.  When this happens, I try making another card right away to correct the things I didn't like about the previous card.  This helps me learn to make better quality cards.

I made this pansy card, but stamped the sentiment too far from right edge of card.  This didn't leave enough room to use the ribbon I wanted to use.  I used a narrower sheer ribbon, which was all I could find in the right color.  This card was okay, but I wasn't satisfied with it.  I immediately began making this card.

Besides the placement and ribbon, I changed the colors of the pansies.  I like this card better than the first one.  Sandy Allnock from Operation Write Home always stresses that we need to make the best quality cards we can because our heroes deserve the best.  They do so much for us.

More punched flowers

I bought these Punch-In stamps years ago from Make an Impression.  I thought they were out of business, but just learned that they kept their online portion only.

This daisy frame stamp doesn't appear to be available any more, but there are a lot of other stamps that can be used with punched flowers.

Punched dogwood

I created this card after reading the tutorial on Flower Power on the Stars & Stamps blog.  This is a very old technique made with supplies for Make an Impression.  This store is out of business, I think.  I bought a lot of their Punch-In stamps and supplies many years ago.  Instructions are in the book I purchased from them.

I punched the balloons in 2 sizes, then punched out a depression at tip of ballon.  I used a white gel pen to make the base of petal lighter.  Petals were shaped with the white tool to the left of petal.  The little sun punch was used for centers.

Stamped image was colored with pencils. Flowers were glued onto stamped branch with Tombow Mono Liquid Glue.

I trimmed the image and added a layer before adhering it to base card.

PS:  I just discovered that Make an Impression only closed their brick & mortar store, but still have their online store.  You can find them HERE.

Thanks to our heroes

This week has been traumatic for a lot of people.  I know I live far away from Boston, but the media brings all those horrible events closer to all of us.  Last night, I fell asleep watching the citizens of Boston celebrating their freedom.  During the night, my dreams designed this card.

The chevron die is made by Papertrey Ink and the thanks die was made by Provo Craft.  The ribbon is by Celebrate It.  I decided to try some cards made with some washi tape instead of the ribbon.

Thanks to all the heroes who keep us safe.