Poinsettia Perfection

The current challenge at the Jingle Belles is Poinsettia Perfection and you just don't need to stick with the obvious you can use any Christmas bloom, greenery, mistletoe holly even evergreen boughs but of course I stuck with the obvious, mainly because I had a gold embossed image with me at the cottage, of course with the embossing I couldn't use my copics but I smooshed distress oxide inks ( one at a time) on an acrylic block and watercoloured  with a brush. I'm really quite pleased with the outcome. 

I layered the image on gold paper and popped it up on a dry embossed red panel, I don't often make a wide border but this image deserved to be front and center. (I love my old PSX stamps) I did add a gold layer under the red embossed one before attaching it to a top  fold base.

Always a good plan to finish the inside at the same time or you really get a surprise when sending your holiday cards. I added a scrap of gold which I embossed with the same folder as I used on the front. My favourite vertical Hero Arts sentient. 

I am adding this to 

Jingle Belles Challenge ~~ Poinsettia Perfection

Thanks for stopping by today, I am way behind in my Holiday stash this year, how are you doing?

W is for Watercolour

 It's a New challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers!!!

What a gorgeous water coloured background Edna has made for herself.

Hello friends, family and followers, W is for Watercolour, well it's not my forte' I have lots of equipment, tombow markers, watercolour pencils, twinking H20s, and many other things that could be used on the watercolour techniques. Today I made a color burst background, I have never had any luck using it but with time closing in on me to get the card done I had to go with it. 

I have tried using color burst many times and this was the best I have ever done with it, I had many inky paper towels and very inky fingers. I didn't want to cover up my work so went with a very large Happy Birthday which I cut 4 of and glued them together for some dimension, it certainly was not easy as this is a very fine die cut. I'm sure I'm still sporting glue. Now if I had remembered to bring my wide double sided tape it would have been much easier. 

Since I made a pretty card I had to add a slightly snarky sentiment.

Since I finished this in the early evening there was no lake setting and I'm not really a person to "stage" my cards but I wanted to show the three colours of color burst I used.

I'm adding this to:

Seize the Birthday ~~  Anything goes

thanks for stopping by today and head over to the MAIN BLOG and check out the watercolour inspiration the rest of the design team have made.

Happy New Year, Welcome to the First Challenge of 2018 at Shopping Our Stash

It's January 2, 2018 and welcome to the first challenge of the new year!!! Challenge 335 at Shopping Our Stash it's Watercolour. I must admit due to a back spasm I haven't been able to sit long enough to do much crafting and watercolour is definitely not my forte'. I tried several ideas which none worked to my satisfaction and just when I was throwing in the "towel" I remembered some 2004 watercolour flower stamps from Hero Arts. I believe I have 5 stamps all can be used by colouring with markers, spritzing with water and stamping. Here is the tag I made with the "real paintbrush" stamp.

I used watercolour paper and framed the image with a scrap of plaid paper that was in the pile on the table, leftover from one of the last Christmas cards 

I used distress markers for the flower and the blue wash background.

It was fun to dig out the 14 year old stamps and play with a technique I haven't done in eons, I might just pick one of the other stamps and try another project.

Thanks for visiting today and I'm sure you have a much more interesting watercolour technique than I came up with, so head over to the Main Blog and check out the rest of the design team inspiration pieces. 

Let's get Arty with the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers!!!

I don't know about you but I'm not very "arty" , I'm not into art journals or mixed media although I've collected a lot of equipment because I want to try. I was hoping to start an art journal but alas ran out of time as life got crazy for a couple of weeks. Well the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers are wanting everyone to get Arty for the next two weeks and join us for challenge #87 A is for Arty. After a few false starts, several hours watching videos I finally came up with some watercolouring.

This card is 5 1/4 X 7 1/4 the method I used was ink the Stampin'up large bg stamp with versamark watermark and embossed in white on watercolour paper. Using a paintbrush I wet the sections of flower and then using Ken Oliver's colorburst powders I coloured the image. I don't have any blue so for the background I used mermaid lagoon and a watercolour brush.

there are tiny specs of different colour in the colourburst as I only used one for the flower and one for the leaves.

I was so excited how the background turned out I had to take a picture of it, and for that reason my card is "big"

Well here are my "fails" although I'm sure I can do something with one or two.

Top left is putting powder on first and then spraying

Bottom is using more water spritzing

the top right was using a spellbinder's stencil (never used) and mixing texture past with merlot colour burst and spreading it over the stencil (more practice would help)

Well there you have it ~ my success and my "fails", I am totally sure you are much better being "Arty" than I am so head over to the Main Blog and check out the fabulous "arty" works of my Sisters then Get Arty and join us.

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #71 ~~ W is for Watercolour

Winter seems to be rearing it's ugly head, time to hunker down and stay warm ~~ and craft woohoo, I can get to do all those techniques I have saved for later.  Watercolour isn't one of my go to techniques, I would like to learn more which is why I did some searching for something different. I found it at Jennifer McGuire Ink and decided to try it for the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge, W is for Watercolour.

If I was looking to use NBUS items (never been used stuff) this challenge, The snowflake is from Stampin'up and never been inked so I used versamark and  white embossing powder on watercolour paper. The technique uses perfect pearls in water spritz but I'm not sure where mine are so I unsealed some liquid shimmer paint I just had to have in three colours, none have ever been opened. I put three shades of blue distress ink on my craft mat, spritzed it with the shimmer instead of water then took my fingers and painted. The sentiment is from a package of foil embossed stickers from Dollar Tree. Here is my finished fingers.....

It will eventually wear off as it won't wash off but oh so much fun to finger paint.

Finished inside and layered the sentiment on recollections dark blue shimmer paper and then on white which were cut with Elizabeth Craft Design stitched rectangles.

Thanks for visiting today head over to the main blog and check out what the rest of the team have made and while there take a peek at the rules before you enter the challenge. 

Jingle Belles Rock the Ombre Christmas

Lauren and Stephanie have really tested me this week, for one thing I didn't really understand the ombre thing but both their cards looked cool. I decided to go with Stephanie's look of the colours of the tree in the picture. I knew to do this I had to get out the distress inks (should have taken the markers to the lake instead) but it worked out fine with my second attempt. I have never attempted anything like this before, in fact my daughter saw the finished card and said " I would have never thought you made it". My son on the other hand asked me if it was a "rainbow" tree.  Oh well judge for yourself, did I pass the test that the Jingle Belles Rock gave?

The music background is from a book I bought at a yardsale, the oval and layer is crumbcake stamped with woodgrain background stamp using versa fine sepia a few gems and a bit of ribbon.

Close up of the watercoloured tree, it was the first time with this technique using a watercolour brush

Yes there are cat hairs on the tree, I will brush them off before I send it.

Inside of the card, it had  a slight mishap when a gust of wind came up and knocked it off the easel and on to the deck, I hope it will press out, I didn't want to take the time to try, I just wanted to get the picture taken.

I would like to enter this in:

Jingle Belles Rock the Ombre Christmas.

Thanks for visiting today and here's one more Holiday card for my stash.

Shopping Our Stash has a NEW Challenge ~~ #216 Splish-Splash

Shopping Our Stash  has a dandy challenge this week, Splish Splash use a wet medium: watercolor, acrylic paint, distress inks. I haven't dabbled in this area much and of course I had all my equipment for the technique I chose in a super cute basket and left it home I was not a happy cottager, to top it off when I looked for my glasses they must be home safe and sound on my desk. I only need them for very fine print and crafting. Darned good job I didn't have a lot to do this weekend. After all that whining here is my offering for the Splish Splash challenge.

I had three shades of blue distress ink pads and some water colour paper, since the craft mat was in the basket I used wax paper and smooshed the three colours on it spritzed with water and dragged the watercolour paper through it.  I stamped just the deck chair and grass with the darkest of the blues, it sort of looks like the fog is coming in off the lake, I coloured the grass with a green copic, then added the three hand drawn birds., 

Since the only baker's twine I have at the cottage is purple, I just made a reef knot out of some cotton yarn I have been making dish cloths out of.

Close up of the birds and the three faux brads I made, I punched 9 dots with the hand punch glued three to a stack and covered it with paper glaze. Not perfect but they do their job.

Thanks for popping by today and checking my blog. Don't forget to check out the rules and see what the rest of the DT have gotten wet with, just click HERE.