Watercolor Secret Garden Flower

I am really enjoying my play with watercoloring.

Actually, I use re-inkers not watercolors.

Does that still count?

Here's my latest attempt.

After I had the panel colored, I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I checked in on the sketch challenge at SCS this week and thought it would work.

Here's the sketch....

I took some liberties with the sketch but I think it's still visible.

One thing I've learned about watercoloring.  

I have to be patient and let one color dry before applying another.

I hope you like this as much as I do.

Off to share at Pixie's Snippet Playground

since I used a snippet of watercolor paper and matting.

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

  **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Secret Garden

Ink: SU Markers (Strawberry Slush, Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight)

Paper:  Watercolor (Strathmore), Pear Pizzazz (snippet)

Other: Needlepoint Border EF, Primrose Petals Stitched Ribbon, Aqua Painter, Re-inkers

Stenciling Homework

I finally used the NBUS stencil I bought a while back.

I CASED a card by the very talented Debby Hughes using different colors and a flower instead of a sentiment on my vellum tag.

My sequins are iridescent and want to look purple in all the photos, but I assure you they aren't.  I actually colored them with a Copic marker and they're pink IRL.

This was actually my second try with this stencil.  The first try was too dark and I needed to try again with a lighter hand.  I was much happier with this try.

I don't often think about vellum, but I love the dreamy quality it adds.

Maybe I'll find some time to do some more class homework.

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge this week is Anything Goes with Twine or String.

I'm so glad you stopped by today.

Enjoy!

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Secret Garden

Ink:  Whisper White, Strawberry Slush

Paper:  Strawberry Slush, Whisper White, Vellum

Other: Moroccan Lattice Stencil (Kite), White EP, Paper Twine (Tim Holtz), Sequins (Joann Fabric)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Another Sunny Secret Garden

Here's another card I did using the Secret Garden set.

The flower was done in the same way as in the previous post.

This time I laid it on my new Madera Corner die and left the unembossed portion at the bottom.

Queen for the Day at SCS inspired the layout.   She's known as Heartsong47 and has so many wonderful cards in her gallery.  I chose this one to CASE.

Color Throwdown has some fantastic colors this week.

 The CCEE Challenge is looking for THINGS WITH WINGS

Addicted to CAS  has a code word

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Secret Garden, Papillon Potpourri, Blossoms Abound

Ink: Always Artichoke, Tuxedo Black (Memento), Orchid Opulence, SU Marker (Rich Razzleberry)

Paper:  Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Always Artichoke

Other:  Big Shot, Fancy Fans EF,  Secret Garden Framelit Dies, Bitty Butterfly Punch, Madera Corner Die (Memory Box), Simply Scored

Sometimes when I'm listing the supplies I forget something.  If you ever have a question, you can email me and I'll be glad to answer.  You can email me through my profile.

I want to thank Jen for choosing my Featuring Lesley Again card as a cut above.

And thank you susanbri for choosing the same card and also my Nature Walk Birthday as CAS Favorites at Splitcoaststampers.

Whew! That's a lot of blogging today.  Sorry to give it all at once, but challenges are closing and I wanted to get in the door on time.

Thanks for bearing with me.  I'll try to sit down and be quiet for a few days.  Maybe.  Or maybe not.....

Enjoy!

Sunny Secret Garden

I had some play time over the weekend. ;)  I  made a couple of cards using the Secret Garden set and the challenges are about to finish up.  So it will be a multi-posting day.


You may want to put on your sunglasses!

This is for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge.  Here's the sketch.

I get to play at Pixie's Crafty Workshop this week as the flower and leaves are from snippets.  The ribbon was too.

This is similar to a card we did in the Stamp Stack last month.  I had some extra pieces and  had a good time using them up.  In fact I may have used up most of the green snippets in the box.

The flowers was stamped 3 times with Whisper White ink on Daffodil Delight cardstock.  Then I embossed with white embossing powder.  I sponged some more DD ink on the flowers and cut them out.  The bottom layer is the whole flower, then I cut the centers out of the other 2 flowers. The layers are built up with dimensionals.

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Secret Garden, Fabulous Florets

Ink:  Whisper White, Wild Wasabi, SU Marker (Pumpkin Pie)

Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, DSP

Other:  Square Lattice EF, Daffodil Delight Seam Binding

I'll be back with another card in a bit.  Keep out your sunglasses!

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

Seize the Birthday Muse

I'd been pondering on the Muse challenge all week.  Then I saw the Color Challenge at SCS  that called for blues and thought about the Watercolor background with re-inkers technique. So I got out the blue re-inkers and water.  

Then yesterday,  I saw the Seize the Birthday sketch and this card just came together.  

Sometimes it pays to be slow.  Maybe....

Our Muse  this week is Marion Vagg and this is the beautiful card she inspired us with.

I focused on the horizontal lines, the blues and the white embossed flowers for my card.

The Color Challenge at SCS this week is 

Marina Mist

Midnight Muse

Baja Breeze

any neutral

DESSERT: add at least 1 gem or sequin

Seize the Birthday is for the girls this week.  Here's Lesley's fantastic sketch.

To do the background, I wet some shimmery white cardstock with my Aqua Painter an dropped some Baja Breeze and Marina Mist re-inkers on the wet paper letting it swirl and mix.  (I helped it swirl with the Aqua Painter.)  I let it cover the whole (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") piece of paper.  After it was dry, I cut off the piece I wanted.  (Some of it wasn't very pretty where I tried to add the Midnight Muse.  I learned that it's best to stay with the lighter colors.)

I used my Color Spritzer and the Midnight Muse marker to get some touches of the Midnight Muse on the background piece.

The flower was stamped in Whisper White and embossed with White Embossing Powder.

The sentiment is stamped in Midnight Muse.

Some score lines mimic Marion's stripes and added a little more interest.

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Card Recipe

Stamps: Secret Garden, My Friend

Ink:  Whisper White, SU Marker (Midnight Muse), Re-inker (Baja Breeze, Marina Mist

Paper:  Shimmery White, Midnight Muse, Whisper White

Other: Aqua Painter, Color Spritzer Tool, Simply Scored, Basic Pearl

There's still time to check out these challenges and join in.

I'm so glad you could stop by today.

Enjoy!

Flowers for Fab Friday

There are so many challenge blogs out there and I've kind of developed an addiction to challenges.  Even though I can't play in many off them, I still have to peek and hope to find time to play with some of my favorites.  Most of the time I do play along with them....in my head, but don't always get it to paper. 

I found a new challenge a few weeks ago.  It's called Fab Friday.   I don't think I'd ever actually entered a card in this challenge, unless they can read my mind (and I really hope nobody can).  But I think I've got one for this challenge.  It helps that it's an every other week challenge.  Here's the sweet sketch.

I used the Spring Garden Bundle from the new Spring Catalog.  It has stamps and dies that all work together.  I used just one of the flowers from this set.

I couldn't find a color challenge that struck my fancy so I used some of my favorite colors, Rich Razzleberry and Marina Mist.

I stamped a second Razzleberry flower on scrap and die cut it.  I die cut another scrap of white to put behind it to give it more body and mounted it with Stampin' Dimensionals.  The leaves were cut and sponged a bit for definition.  A trick I learned from my talented friend Loll!  She does such beautiful work!

The faux "flowersoft" is made by rubbing 2 Styrofoam balls together and collecting the rubbings in a sandwich bag.  A couple drops of re-inker makes it any color you want.  I add it to the center of the flowers with Crystal Effects.

All Supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Card Recipe

Stamps: Secret Garden, Curly Cute

Ink:  Marina Mist, Rich Razzleberry, Certainly Celery

Paper:  Marina Mist, Whisper White

Other:  Secret Garden Framelits, Little Leaves Sizzlits, Faux "Flowersoft" (homemade), Crystal Effects, Stampin' Dimensionals

I'm so glad you stopped by.  And thanks so much for your kind comments.  I read and treasure every one.

Enjoy!