Watercolor Happy Birthday

Hi Everyone! Wow I can't believe it's been 5 months since my last blog post! Holy cow! Time really does fly! I apologize for my long absence. Things have been crazy, at work and at home, and to be honest with so many things I'm trying to juggle, it's all just a bit too much. My only regret is not having enough time set aside to do what I love. Hopefully that can and will change soon. 

August has got to be the month with most birthdays happenings left and right. There's probably at least 5 people I know who celebrate it this month. I'm so bad at this I actually was only able to make 1 card for now. Hopefully these friends of mine won't mind belated cards! 

I used last month's Stamp of the Month from Close to My Heart. The stamp set is called Storybook Alphabet. I got this idea from Pinterest c/o Yana Smakula. Intead of using Copics though I used my love for watercolor instead and painted over the letters using Prima Marketing's watercolor confections.  I glazed over every letter with Glossy Accents hoping to give it that dimension and added my own handwritten sentiment. I wanted a clean and simple look and yet at the same time use everything I love which is watercolor and lettering. 

Here's another view from this angle.

 

Am thinking of adding some shimmer later on when it's all complete dry. We'll see how that goes. 

If you guys have Instagram account, check me out over there where I'm a bit more active. I snapped a couple of videos of how I did this card on Instragram Stories. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Birthday Bubblegum Paper!

Hi everyone! My share for today is a birthday card I made for a friend of my Bubblegum Paper. I didn't want to post it until I'm sure she got it, so here goes! I know she likes elephants and this stamp set from My Favorite Things Adorable Elephants was just screaming her name.

I have to take a better picture somehow. Been trying to figure out how to adjust the lights on my makeshift 'studio' and somehow still can't get it right. I colored the elephant and balloons with Zig clean color brush on water color paper, and put liquid gloss on the balloons after it dried. I embellished with some sequins just to add some pop to it.

It's CAS and just Bubblegum Paper's type I think. :)

Hope you had a blast on your birthday!

Just A Note - Get Well Soon

Hi everyone! It's a rainy cold Sunday here in SoCal. While most dread this weather, I actually love it! Love the breeze, and love the coolness of the air rather than dry and hot.

My share today is a get well soon card I made for my daughter's teacher. She's going to be out for awhile and my daughter and I wanted to give her a card to cheer her up and wish her well.

I used My Mind's Eye Now and Then paper pad for the background paper. The stamp set I used is from Crafter's Companion Moonbeam Meadow collection - Just A Note.  I colored the image with Zig Clean Color Brush and added a ribbon to top it off.

The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn Get Well Soon. It seemed to fit the box perfectly!

Hope everyone has a great Sunday! Keep warm!

Time Out by Moonbeam Meadown

Moonbeam Meadow must be my favorite collection from Crafter's Companion. I've had these images for awhile now and have been debating whether to color it with alcohol markers, colored pencils or watercolor. Since I've been playing a lot with my Faber Castell Gelatos lately, I thought I'd do a pure gelato watercolor technique on one version.

The image I used is Time Out, and it aptly fits what I've been feeling lately. How I wish I have the luxury of time to just sit back and relax, and idle the day away.

Here are the materials I used:

Cardstock - Close to My Heart Juniper color cardstock
Background Paper - Jillibean Soup
Colors using mix of  Faber Castell Gelatos:
Blues - Cotton Candy, Boysenberry, Blueberry
Greens - Gree Tea, Lime, Iced Pear
Purples - Metallic Grape, Lavender
Red - Red Cherry
Browns - Chocolate, Butterscotch
Oval Dies - Silhouette Die Cut
Round Sentiment Die - My Favorite Things Stitched Circle STAX

Lastly, I brushed the red mushroom cap with Wink of Stella Red and White brushes.

My second version uses Derwent Inktense Pencils.

Background Paper - My Mind's Eye
Dies - Simon Says Stamp Postage Dies
Derwent Inktense Colors Used:
Reds - Poppy Red, Chilli Red
Purples - Thistle
Blues - Iris Blue, Lagoon, Navy Blue
Browns - Willow, Baked Earth
Greens - Hooker's Green, Apple Green
Mushroom Stem - Neurtral Gray, White

And last but not the least, I brushed the red mushroom cap with Wink of Stella Clear.

Gorjuss - Thinking of You

Hi  Everyone! First of I apologize for my super looong absence. So much stuff has happened to me in the last month that this hobby of mine had  to take a back seat. On the other hand, I have been coloring a lot lately. I've finally purchased my very own set of Copics, and have spent quite some time trying to learn and getting the hang of it. That, and I also recently acquired Spectrum Noir Aqua. If you follow my blog you know I'm a big Spectrum Noir user, so when they came out with Aqua I just have to have it!

Today's card uses a stamp set from Gorjuss. I believe it's Ruby. I am obsessed with a few brands lately, namely Gorjuss and La-La Land. So anyway, this card features Ruby, and I used Spectrum Aqua to color her. I'm actually quite surprised at how great the Aqua pens are. The colors are so vibrant, and mixing the colors was pretty easy. I've tried a version of this using Distress Markers but I wasn't able to achieve the look I wanted. There were too many water marks that's too distracting, so I switched to trying out the Aqua instead. And boy was I so pleased!

So, I used Crimson and Burgundy for her dress and shoes, Peach for her skin tone with a touch of Topaz, and for her hair I used a mixture of Sepia and Terracota I believe. I used Black for the stripes on her socks. The swing was colored using Fawn. For the background I used Tim Holtz Peacock Feathers Distress Ink with a mix of Frayed Burlap. As you can see coloring Ruby with the Spectrum Noir Aqua looks pretty clean, but when it came to the background using Distress Markers, you can see the water marks and it actually bled to her socks too. I have yet to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I used a La-La Land border die for the side border, and stamped the sentiment using Lawn Fawn's Chit Chat.

I love all of Gorjuss' stamps. I think she's just too cute! Not to mention it comes in a very very pretty case too! I buy mine from MarkerPop, they seem to have a more complete collection of Gorjuss stamps.

More to come! Hope you guys like it! It's not perfect, but I promise to keep practicing!

Playing With Retro Marci

My latest obsession is La-La Land Crafts Marci & Luka stamps. I first encountered them at the recent Scrapbook Expo and now I'm hooked. I'm resisting the urge to complete every image, and will wait for a good sale to collect as much as I can.

In the meantime, I decided to purchase 1 digi stamp (Retro Marci) just to try out coloring it. 

I again used Spectrum Noir, ShinHan and Tim Holtz Distress Markers. I will soon try it with my new Spectrum Aqua. And since that's my new aquisition, I will create a separate post just reviewing the new pens.

Here are my sample color projects. Surprisingly I'm not a big fan of how Spectrum Noir alcohol markers turned out. The ShinHan ones were more vibrant, and blended better. The Chameleon pens I'm still trying to get the hang of it, so the skin tones  aren't smooth. However color wise it did not disappoint either. 

This one below used Tim Holtz distress markers. I badly need practice. Add to that since this is a digi stamp, my guess is watercolor and printer toners do not mix well, hence the dark skin tone shade.

More to come. Let me know what you think. 

Enjoy!

Color Testing

Because of what happened to my Chameleon Pens, I thought I'd use my other markers and see which ones has the best output. Granted I'm not the best at coloring, but I wanted to see which brand/method gives the most pop when it comes to color.

My favorite is I think still Spectrum Noir, though I'm not that good at shading yet so this flower wasn't colored correct. However, I love just how rich and vibrant the ink is, compared to ShinHan.
My husband picked Prismacolor, though I find it a bit flat. His 2nd choice was Tim Holtz. I realized my techniques weren't the same, so it's probably not fair.

It was just a fun distraction, to take some stress away after a long day at work.

So which one's your pick?

A Little Note

I'm so glad CTMH now has more stamps that can be colored in. I love coloring stamps and I couldn't wait to do this. Unfortunately I picked the wrong watercolor medium. I thought I'd give my Prismacolor Watercolors but they didn't seem to blend well. I'm a bit disappointed with the color turnout. Maybe it didn't help that I didn't have a big range of colors to choose from, but I still like the overall turnout of the card.

I used CTMH stamp set A Little Note, Topiary Striped Washi Tape, Topiary Mini Chevron Ribbon, and some Gold Sequins.

I still love the look of the card. I'll give it another try and color the stamp with either my Chameleon Pens or Alcohol Markers.

This is the stamp set I used.

A1171 A Little Note

Enjoy!

Watercolor Your Own Kind of Wonderful

It's been awhile since I did any watercoloring, so I thought I'd bring out the brushes again. Below is watercolor background inspired card. I heat embossed a mosaic background, colored it wonderful, and used a sentiment from Close To My Heart's Your Own Kind of Wonderful stamp set. The butterfly is stamped using the retired Creme Brûlée ink.

Bee Happy!

I'm totally digging watercoloring these days so I've been working on stamps that I can add a lot of color to. This is not totally watercoloring as I do not have a big space to have a cup of water and lay out colors and stuff, but I'll get there soon. For now, I'm using Tim Holtz Distress Markers and a waterbrush to do my coloring.

I used paper from Free To Be Me paper collection as my card base, you can't see clearly from the picture but it's the one with a glossy background to it, the design resembled a hive so I thought it would be appropriate for this theme. The stamp set I used is from Jeanette's Archive, it's called Happy Hive. I pretty much used the whole set. I wanted to create sort of like a theme with all these bees swirling around.

I used watercolor paper (140lb), stamped the images using Memento black ink. This is the only ink I know where the color doesn't bleed. I used Tim Holtz Walnut Stain to stamp the hive, Black Soot for the bee stripe, Mustard Seed for the rest of the bee body. The flowers are a mix of Peacock Feathers, Spun Sugar, Dusty Concord, Fired Brick, Barn Door, Picked Raspberry and the leaves are Mowed Lawn and Peeled Paint. The sentiment "Bee Happy" I used Ripe Persimmon and Faded Jeans.  I used a Pentel Arts Waterbrush to do the watercoloring.

It's a shame that CTMH does not have Distress Inks. I love these distress inks and markers. And the colors are so vibrant! I am however going to purchase CTMH's watercolor pencils. They just got it back in stock and it's the first thing I will order tomorrow. I can't wait to play with those!

Here's what the stamp set looks like.

B1445 Happy Hive

Give A Lift

Today's card is inspire by the Balloon Ride theme of paper packs and coordinated stamp set. I've been so busy lately and while I haven't been able to create, trust me I'm still able to shop. And lately I've been watercoloring most of the time, starting from distress markers to watercolor pencils and now to actual watercolor. Anyway, I got sidetracked....

This card is made using Balloon Ride Scrapbooking WOTG. The stamp set however, I used Give A Lift instead. The balloon was stamped using Desert Sand ink if I remember correctly, the sentiment I used Saddle. I also brushed the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink from Tim Holtz. I used Prismacolor watercolor pencils to color in the balloon and flowers. At first I did not think about using watercolor. I started out thinking just dry would be fine, I just wanted to give it more oomph rather than just plain stamping it. But as I kept coloring I decided I'd like to give it a richer color, make it stand out more, and that's when I decided to add a bit of water. If I were to do this again, I would've used watercolor paper. But since I only used cardstock, you'll see some edges bled, and that's my mistake. It turned out a bit too orangey, but overall, I think it's not that bad. I personally liked how it turned out! Do you?

G1075 Balloon Ride WOTG

D1581 Give A Lift

Distress Markers - Watercolor

I've been trying my hand at the watercolor effect by using Tim Holtz Distress Markers. I signed up for Online Card Class Watercolor and have been experimenting a few of my stamps last weekend. Here's a couple I made.

The stamp set is from Crafter's Companion. It's from Angelica and Friends set, and she is Isobel. I used a mix of Tim Holtz Distress Markers - the dress is Picked Raspberry, the hair I think is Brushed Corduroy. The sky is Stormy Sky, and the accessories in Barn Door and Chipped Sapphire. The sun and sentiment are from a retired CTMH C1364 TLC stamp set. I used Mustard Seed on the sun. The grass is from Lawn Fawn and I used Crushed Olive. Instead of using a real brush, I used Pentel Water Brush, and I really can't tell you how awesome these brushes really are! You just have to try it for yourself! I love you easily in control you can be with the water, and it seems to just always be wet enough but not too wet. I just love it!

My apologies but I just don't remember the name of this stamp set. I've had this for awhile now and it's just sitting in a binder without its original packaging so I cannot remember what it's called. I'm pretty sure though that it's from Stampendous. It's a background cling floral stamp.

I used Mowed Lawn for the leaves, and for the flowers a mix of Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Tattered Rose, Tea Dye and Ripe Persimmon. I used Scattered Straw for the yellow halo-ish background effect.

I still need a lot of work, but for a beginner this is what I've come up with. I've been very busy lately and hopefully soon can post the reason why, so I haven't been creating a lot lately. I have yet to try watercolor pencils and have yet to christen my Spectrum Noir colored pencils! Oh how I wish I have time!! For now, this is what I've done.