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!

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

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.

Thinking of You Egg Tote

I wanted to do a last Easter project so I thought of making an Egg shape tote. But halfway through the project I changed my mind and switched to a more generic theme, Thinking of You. I still used egg shape cut to make the tote but decided to change the paper. I used a sheet from the Jubilee paper pack and the wavy border accent came from my scraps of Ariana paper.   At first it didn't seem like the paper matched, maybe I'm having an off creative day today. But as I added a plain yellow ribbon and the stamp sentiment, it all came together somehow. I used a stamp from Jeanette's Archive Friendly Thoughts and used Tim Holtz distress markers and water colored the image. I used Faded Jeans as the background so the blue will tie in with the Ariana paper border. I love Tim Holtz Distress markers! I used a regular water brush (now my favorite tool) to color the whole thing in. The flowers and leaves were colored using Mowed Lawn and Barn Door. I used Mustard Seed for the little dots so the yellow will somehow tie in with the ribbon color. And the last touch was to mark the edges using Tim Holtz Walnut Stain distress ink.

You'll have to forgive my ribbon as my fingers aren't so adept in making them. Maybe it's time to get one of those ribbon making spools thing....

Here is an image of the stamp I used.

A1154 Friendly Thoughts

Here's how the back side looks like.