Sweet Stamps: Holiday Kittie

Hi, I have another holiday card over at Sweet Stamps Blog.

This is a watercolor card.  The trees were masked and watercolored with Peerless Water Colors and then embellished with pigment pens.  The Kitty was also painted with Peerless, fussy cut and mounted onto the card base with 3d foam dots.

Below is a pictorial of the steps.  Fairly straight forward.

Masked with removable tape.

Painted and masking is being removed

Trees finished and now adding blue skies and background

Finished.  The cat has been embellished with Gel Pen, the tree with micron markers.  The snow is just a wash of blue and grey.  Added and embellishment, popped up the cat and it is ready for the mail.

The stamp is available at Sweet Stamps Shop.  Love this cat..  Kitty_Sweets__Set_SS4414

Peerless watercolors, Strathmore Cold Press Water Color Paper and other supplies from Stash.

Happy Crafting,
Josette

Robin's Nest: Watercolor and Embossing

Good morning.  Today I am a guest designer for Robin's Nest.  Follow the link and check out all the wonderful goodies that are available.

For today's card, I thought I would continue with my exploration of how to use embossing in your projects.  The one area that we haven't explored is the use of traditional watercolors.  By that I mean using watercolor paper, water and soft blended edges.  In the ColourArte project, I used embossing powders and regular cardstock.  The embossing powder acted as a "dam" to contain the paint.  In this technique the embossing powder acts as a way to define the stamp and allows us to use the property of watercolor to spread.  Make sense, maybe not, but as we look at this card it will become clearer.  Also, look at the previous posting for ColorArte and you will see how they differ.

Considered a Winter theme, but there are so many showing up, I thought we needed something bright and cheery!

Tools needed:  Stamp, I used a floral stamp.  In the photo is an evergreen stamp, but it was too boring.
Versmark, powder tool and Watercolor Paper.  So like in previous post, dust with the powder, stamp and heat emboss.  I used a fine clear powder for this project.

I was not able to get a good photo of the embossed image, so I stamped it in black for you to have a better idea of what I started with.

For my watercolors I am going to use Peerless.  If you are not familiar with these, they are a pigment embedded into paper.  You wet the paper to release the pigment and then use like any other water color product.  I really like this medium as it is easy to store, and the colors are vibrant.  Blends and spreads well, but not too much.  I do like my tubed watercolor pigments, but I am basically lazy and this is quick and convent.  I store them in photo sleeves.

First step is to add a wash of water to the image.  I am painting on the "water" over the image and just a smidgen outside of the outermost lines.  I am trying to keep the border area dry so the paint won't flow into that area too much.

The color is picked up from the Peerless strips and floated onto the paper.  In the first photo, green and yellow has been added.  In the second photo a darker green and orange has been added to begin the shading and separation of the parts of the stamps into "parts"  by varying the colors.

After the center image was painted, I used a heat tool to dry the image.  Then added water to the background and floated a blue around the outside.  Adding more water as needed to obtain a nice color wash.

Closer view of the painting.  See how the embossing is showing up as white lines.  

I thenspattered the image with a darker green and die cut into a circle.  Here you can see the embossing better. Note that the color is not staying in the lines.  This gives it a more painterly appearance.  

Ok, now to finish the card:  Using the same 3 sprays: Water Cooler by Calico Studio and a Green and Gold by Heidi Swapp,  a white cardstock, commercial paper doily and beige seam tape were sprayed.

I use a card board box to contain the misting.  The background was cut down to size and the best part of the ribbon selected for the card and the remainder tied into a bow.

All that is left is to add a mat in gold, a few embellishments and a card base.

The doily is placed on the card front and adhered with score tape.  The metal embellishment has also been attached with score tape and then the card base is layered on to a Gold Mat.

Watercolor paper can be tricky to get to stick. The paper often warps or the texture makes it hard to get a good contact.   I find that using score tape and fun foam for dimension will keep everything in place and it will survive even the USA mail. 

The bow and a metal tag completes the picture.  I did not add a sentiment so it will work for about any occasion.  I will add the appropriate sentiment to the inside of the card, thus allowing the art work to take center stage.  

Finished!!  Hope you enjoyed this final installment of Embossing.  Next month I will pick a different technique to focus on so stay tuned.  If you have any suggestions please leave a comment and let me know what you would like to have me explore.  

Thank you Robin's Nest for this opportunity to share my blog with you.

Until next time,

Happy Crafting,

Josette

Links

Robin's Nest

Visit previous blog posting for more information on Embossing.  Also ColourArte YouTube Channel for a video on embossing and painting with Twinkling H20's, which are another form of watercolor.

Supplies:

Peerless Watercolors,

White Neenah 80# card stock for card front. 

Commercial paper doily, 5"

Gold Cardstock for mat, Cream for Card base.

Strathmore 400 series 140# cold Press Watercolor paper

Beige seam binding

Metal embellishment: Tim Holtz Ideology line

Spray Paint:  Water cooler by Calico Studio, Green Shimmer and Gold Shimmer by Heidi Swapp

Fun Foam

Score-tape, glue dots

Day 2 another card!

Today's card is interesting.  I was trying to water color flowers and this one came out dark and "fall like" not spring at all, which is what I was going for. The stamp is Straw-flowers, from Technique Tuesday,  I did have success in creating a spring flower with a later attempt, using  a different stamp, and a different set of water colors (will post that later),  but I needed to do something with this one, but what?.

I had a template for a swing card,   I had received a similar one in a kit at the Journey Coach meeting in March.  So I decided to try one on my own and only usea circle die.  All the papers were cut to fit, after I had the swing card base build.  I went with an antique or vintage theme.  I feel like it worked out well and "lightened it up at bit", not so dark and fall like, but still not spring!

I learned a lot about water coloring.  What works and what does not work in regards to paper selection and types of ink that work for water coloring.  In the end: I used Canson paper water color paper, 140# cold press, stamped in distress ink , pumice stone and water colored the image with  Peerless Watercolors.  After the main focus was completed, the background was inked in distress ink that had been  diluted and then was sprayed on (blue) and brown was dabbed on.  I believe these were tumbled glass and brushed corduroy.  One thing I like about distress is that when wet they produce a multicolored effect.  After drying, I  outlined with a copic multiliner and splattered ink spots using the same distress inks plus black soot.  I am not sure the title of the paper pack I used  as the cover and identifying marks are long lost, but I in know it was graphic 45.  Anyway, enjoy this "spark" and will post another soon.