Watercolored Flower

Hello! Hope you are having a wonderful day. I am so excited to be getting some warmer temperatures here FINALLY! Spring is here.

I did another card for the StampTV Flowers and Polkadots challenge--This one uses the new Through Thick and Thin incentive set (so it is free with a $75 purchase in March!):

I watercolored the flower on this card and the sentiment is from an older Gina K Set that I believe is retired:(

Fun to make--reminds me of SPRING! yay!
Thanks for stopping by!

Cammie

Flowering Friendship

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday...

Nope. Tooth issue still unresolved. Going again today....sigh!

On to something fun---Here is a peek at a new set from Flourishes, called Nasturtiums...

Stamper's Dream store will be carrying this set and the other new Flourishes releases at 10 p.m. CST Friday night!!! I stamped the flowers in versamark and embossed them in gold on watercolor paper. I did this twice so I could pop some of the leaves and flowers up on foam tape. I water colored the flowers with SU! reinkers and a paint brush. I cut out the flowers in an oval shape by tracing the inside of an oval Spellbinders die and then cutting it out so I could leave some detail outside the edges. Then I framed the flowers with a gold scalloped oval (Spellbinders). Check out Michelle's store for a great selection of the new Spellbinders dies!

I used my Scor-Pal to create a nice embossed grid on the background white layer.

I framed them in gold and added the little sentiment in the set on a tag to attach it to the main panel. I added a touch of gold to the edges of the tag with a Zigpainty pen. The cording and ribbon are both from May Arts. You can find tons of awesome May Arts ribbon HERE!

Materials used: Stamps-Nasturtiums (Flourishes); watercolor paper; Versamark; gold embossing powder (SU!); heat tool; Memento tuxedo black ink; SU reinkers; paintbrush; gold cardstock (SU!); gold cord (May Arts); ribbon (May Arts); Gold Zigpainty pen; Fiskars Lace corner punch; gold eyelet; gold brad (SU!); tag punch (SU!); Spellbinders oval and circle Nestabilities; Cuttlebug (Provocraft); foam mounting tape.

Keeping it short until I feel better. Thanks for all of your prayers. I am going away this weekend on a trip to the beach with all of my sisters so I hope that I get some relief soon so I can actually enjoy the trip.

Have a great day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Gina K Preview Day 2

Hello! Welcome to Day 2 of the Gina K Previews. Today, the design team is showing cards created with Asela's new set called Zoo Animals.

Here is my card:

I kept this pretty simple...focusing on that cute Lion. I stamped him three times and watercolored him with SU! reinkers. I cut out the face from one and layered it over another. Then, I cut the head/mane out of that one and popped it up over the third. Very easy.

I love the cute sentiment "I'm Not Lion...You're the best!"

To embellish this card I used a cool Fiskars curved corner punch, brads and ribbon that come in the Floral Frenzy kit and some Star punches (SU!) The cool scalloped design is created using the Threading Water punch by Fiskars. I used the paper piercing guide to pierce the holes around the inside of the circle. The dp is from Memory Box (Homespun collection).

If you want to see more projects created with this set, hop on over to these wonderful blogs: Asela Donna, Erika, Jessica, Joanne, Kurtis, Melanie, Theresa , and Sharri Seffens (*In the Spotlight Designer) and, of course, Gina K!

See you tomorrow for Preview Day 3!

BTW--I did add a dialogue box on the right hand side of this blog. This is for quick questions or even requests. I have had a few people ask me questions without leaving any way to respond. Hopefully this will help!

Thanks for stopping by!

IS it a Fish??

It is Monday and time for another CCEE challenge. This week it is the "Catchy Name Featured Stamper" challenge (CNFS). This is one of our favorite challenges that we do each month ... basically one of our members picks someone who has a catchy user name on SCS and then we create a card around that name. This week, Cindy Motherway picked the CNFS and she picked 'Fishlips'! Cindy instructed us that when we created our card it had to have fish/fish lips on it, or fish of some sort (preferably the kind that swim!)

My dilemma---I received my new Gina K stamps that will be released this week (on Thursday!) and fell in love with this seahorse image (from the Best Fishes set). So, I created this card and my husband said, "I don't think seahorses are fish. You might want to look that up!"

Ekkk! I did not have time to make another card and I knew that no one else would use a seahorse for their fish image. So I did a bit of research and found that a seahorse IS a bony fish. They don't have scales but they have a thin layer of skin over plates that are arranged in a circular pattern throughout their body. They swim upright and during times of social interaction, they turn a bright color.

Score.

So, I am proud to present my FISH card (giggle!):
I love this seahorse. It was the first new Gina K stamp I have played with and I know I will use it lots. I painted the seahorse with reinkers and then applied a layer of Shimmerz (olive and December sky) over him. Then, to add even more sparkle, I added some crystal Stickles to some of the sections.

In this picture you can see more of the shimmer. This seahorse really sparkles!!!

Materials used: Stamps- Best Fishes (Gina K Designs); chocolate chip cardstock, Watercolor paper (SU!); Designer paper-My Mind's Eye; Memento black ink; bashful blue, old olive, certainly celery, brilliant blue reinkers (Stampin' Up!); Close to cocoa Classic Stamp pad (SU!); sponge; paper piercing tool and mat pack (SU!); Shimmerz-December sky, olive, blue; Stickles- crystal (Ranger); jumbo eyelet (SU!); Cropadile; hemp (Hobby Lobby); spellbinders dies; Cuttlebug (Provocraft); dimensional (SU).

You can check out all the other FISHY CCEE creations here. Hope you will play along!

Stay tuned: Gina K previews begin tomorrow! I cannot wait to share some more of the newest sets that will be released on Thursday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Anyone Can Color: A Watercoloring Tutorial

Last year, I created a few simple tutorials on coloring--one on coloring with prismacolor pencils and one with Copic markers. After my post the other day with the watercolored flowers, I received a lot of emails asking how I did it...so today I thought I would show you how EASY it is to paint with Stampin' Up! reinkers.

My goal this year is to create level II tutorials for all of the coloring mediums I have already done. I really love using lots of different coloring mediums and have found that most are a lot easier to use than they appear.

I am going to list all of my coloring tutorials on the sidebar of my blog shortly so they will be easier to find.

Watercoloring with SU Reinkers

What you need:
Paintbrush (or aquapainter, etc)
Bowl of water (you don't need this if you use aquapainter)
Ink to stamp image (I used Memento tuxedo black because I am lazy and can use this for almost anything I color with!)
Watercolor paper (essential)
Reinker(s) in what ever colors you want to paint with (Stamp pad is optional. You can simply use a plastic plate to hold the reinker color if you don't have the pad.)
Stamp image (I used a flower from A Year of Flowers from Gina K Designs)

I choose to use a thin paint brush when watercoloring because it gives me more control. I have used an aquapainter before and find that sometimes it drops more water than I want when I squeeze it. You may prefer to use an aquapainter and that is fine. It is just a matter of personal preference.


Step 1:
Stamp image on watercolor paper.
Step 2: Squeeze a drop of reinker on the inside of the stamp pad (or plastic plate).
If you are using more than one color on an image, prepare all inks for that image the same way.
For this image, I simply used Riding Hood Red (SU!). You can get several shades from each color so for some images you can use one reinker to color. That is one of the reasons I love watercoloring.

Step 3: Dip brush in water and mix with some of the ink to create lighter color. Now you are ready to paint.

Step 4: Dip brush in the darkest area of the ink and paint where you would see the darkest areas in the rose. (Tip: If you think of a real rose---darker areas would appear where the petals attach to the flower and right under each petal.)

Step 5: Then dip the brush in the lighter (diluted) area of ink and paint the other areas of the flower, keeping in mind where there would be natural light hitting the flower. The ink will blend into the darker area nicely because the water helps to move the ink. This is the great (and easy) part of watercoloring. It is very easy to achieve nice (realistic) results.

Because I knew I was cutting the flower out, I didn't have to worry about keeping the ink inside the lines on this. I was just concerned with making the color realistic.

Step 6: Go over any areas that need to be blended together. You can create even lighter areas by dipping the brush in the water (do not oversaturate) and going over the areas that you want to make lighter.

When the ink is dry you can cut out the flower and attach to the card.

For my flower card, I used:

Red Rose: Riding Hood Red

Blue Flower: Brilliant Blue, Bordering Blue

Sunflower: Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Barely Bananna, More Mustard

Stems and Leaves: Old Olive

Watercoloring is one of the easiest ways to get realistic and vibrant colors with very little effort. I think if you try this, you will be amazed at how easy it is to paint with reinkers.

Please let me know if try it---I would love to see your creations.

Stay tuned: My Favorite Things will be releasing four new stamp sets on Wednesday and I have some MFTeasers to share with you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Watercolored Flowers

Before I get to my card tonight--I want to give a special shout out to two of my stamping friends---Carole and Denise--who were just both added to the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen today! Congrats girls---you are both truly amazing and very inspiring stampers!

I love this My Favorite Things image---I have used this A LOT and never tire of it. For this card I decided to watercolor the image. I love the effect watercolors has when you are painting water...always gives it a nice touch.

I stamped the "friend" sentiment on a piece of twill ribbon and used my Stampin' Up! Weathered background to provide some texture. (Sob! Did you hear that SU! is retiring that background???? I am so bummed!)

REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION

Materials used: Stamps: In Full Bloom (My Favorite Things); Weathered (Stampin’ Up!); Cardstock-watercolor paper, barely banana, old olive, ruby red (Stampin’ Up!); Brilliance Black ink; Old olive classic marker (Stampin’ Up!); Barely Bannana classic stamp pad (Stampin’ Up!); Reinkers: artichoke, ruby red, brilliant blue, summer sun (Stampin’ Up!); Paintbrush; Paper piercing tool and mat pack (Stampin’ Up!); Hemp (Hobby Lobby); Cuttlebug (Provocraft); Rectangle Nestability dies (Spellbinders); Corner punch (Stampin’ Up!); Brads (We R Memory Keepers); Twill ribbon (Stampin’ Up!); Crimper (Fiskars); Sakura Stardust gellyroll pen; Dimensionals (Stampin’ Up!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Watercolored Flowers

Yeah! I managed to squeeze some stamping time in today. (Boy, I am SICK of having my house on the market ALREADY--and it has only been on three days!)

I pulled out this adorable set from My Favorite Things called Bundles of Bouquets. The flower vase is stamped in Brilliance black ink on watercolor paper and then I watercolored the image. I am not great at watercoloring but I still like to do it!

The background is stamped with Stampin' Up! Weathered.

I pierced around the edge and then used my olive marker from Stampin' Up! to connect the piercings (faux sewing!)

The piece of blue cardstock is from Bazzill Boardwalk collection and was a gift from my sweet friend Tosh!

I used my Cuttlebug and little tag die to create the mini tag. I stamped the word "friend" on it on olive and faux sewed the edges of it too.


Materials used: Stamps-Bundles of Bouquets (My Favorite Things), Weathered (Stampin' Up!); brilliance black ink; watercolors; aquapainter; old olive SU marker; Cardstock-mustard, olive, cranberry crisp, watercolor paper (SU!); Bazzill Basics-Boardwalk; hardware (We R Memory Keepers); Cuttlebug and tag die and Mosaic embossing folder; dimensionals (SU!); hemp (SU!); mustard ribbon (SU!); paper piercing tool and mat (SU!).

Fun stuff:

Check out the Craft Critique review for today--that's me!

Kim (The My Favorite Things lady) is having a cool contest on her blog. Check it out here.

If you have the Framed Flowers set from Gina K Designs and want to win a $25 gift certificate to her store, check out this post.

Thanks for stopping by!