I just finished a video tutorial on how I created the background on these two cards shown on this blog a couple of posts ago. The backgrounds were created using copic ink/colorless blender and copic ink/rubbing alcohol.
Here is the video:
A few days ago we woke up to temperatures in the 20’s but today it is in the mid 70’s! That’s how it is in northwest Florida. And because of the beautiful temperatures I am still in springtime mode with watercoloring.
I am really such a beginner at watercoloring, and while stamps help I struggle to control the water, often ending up with just blobs of color. My craft room contains many different brushes, several different brands of watercolor paint and a variety of watercolor paper. All range from the very cheap to the more expensive. The biggest impact in helping me do better however is the type of watercolor paper. I’ve found that the better quality paper will allow better control of the colors and blending. Here is my unscientific test of two brands of watercolor paper.
The stamps are all from Art Impressions. I used the same stamps, same brand of water based markers (although in slightly different colors) but two different watercolor papers. Here is what I used – the unfinished card on the left uses Artist Touch, the finished card on the right uses Saunders.
Artist Touch Watercolor (the small blue tablet) – 140 lb weight cold press made in China. Twelve 4 x 6 sheets for $2 at Hobby Lobby (before coupons, taxes etc). Aside from the price I choose this because it is a nice bright white color and most watercolor papers are more off white.
Saunders Waterford – 140 lb cold press, 100% cotton made in England. A block of twenty 12 x 9 sheets for about $30 at Dick Blick. I purchased this based on the recommendation from an online watercolor class I took.
The results? While I like the bright white of the Artist Touch paper, I found it difficult to work with. Even the smallest amount of water would spread the color around quickly. I ended up throwing away two pieces before I was able to get one I was reasonable happy with. I was able to work much longer with color with the Saunders paper. The card on the right with the Saunders paper was my first try – so there was no waste.
About the cost…while the Saunders paper is more expensive, let me break it down to what it costs for a 4 x 6 piece. The Artist Touch paper breaks down to about $.17 per 4 x 6 sheet. With Saunders, breaking down the price of the block of twenty 12 x 9 sheets works out to about $.38 per 4 x 6 piece. While Saunders ends up being about double, I think $.38 for a card front is well worth it. And I had no waste when I used this brand.
Now, I think the less expensive brands have a place in my craft room – I will use them for practicing and testing colors. I also like using watercolor paper as card bases and using the cheaper versions will work just fine for this purpose.
Thanks for stopping by today.
I’ve been playing around with my watercolors and will be showing some of the things I’ve created. Today is something very, very simple to do. First, here is the card:
The simple but vibrant band of color on the side could not have been easier. I took a Kaleidacolor rainbow inkpad – Desert Heat collection – and stamped the ink onto a long and narrow acrylic block. With my mini mister I lightly spritzed water onto the inked block then pressed the block onto watercolor paper. That is all there is to it!!
The stamps are from Technique Tuesday’s Greenhouse collection and were stamped with Memento black ink.
Thanks for stopping by today!!
Island Life Featured June 21
Silly Shells Featured June 22
Today’s set, Island Life, is my favorite of the releases this month. I love anything beachy and can see the images in this set used not just for birthday, but also for holiday cards that I send to my family up north.
This no-layer card was done on heavy weight watercolor paper. The image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with watercolors. It was quick and easy – and you end up with a card that is a breeze to mail!
Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win one of the above stamp sets! Just comment on the following blogs (don’t forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) All four winners will be announced on June 23, 2012 on the Mark’s Finest Papers blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!) The deadline for commenting is 11PM EST on Friday June 22, 2012.
Nancy – you are here
Here is the final sneak peek for Mark’s Finest Papers. This set, to be released next week, is called Island Life. I am loving this set. Living in Florida I am always on the lookout for beachy type images and I love the ones on this set. Here is my card.
I stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on watercolor paper and colored with watercolor pencils.
Stop by next week when we have the official blog hop!!!
This week the design team at Mark’s Finest Papers is showing some sneak peeks of new sets to be issued next week. Todays card is made with a few images from the Scenie Selections set and sentiment from a new daisy set.
Scenic Selections is a great set with a variety of small images to help you create little scenes. I used the tree and fence images on the main panel and some leaf images on the base card. All cardstock is fr om MFP – I used watercolor paper on the main piece, stamped the images with Memento Rich Cocoa and used water based markers to color them in.
The hill was done by taking a piece of pap
We finally have some Florida weather. It’s been in the 70’s for the past several days – and no humidity either!
Here is another clean and simple card for this weeks challenge at SCS – which is to make your own background.
The background could not be simpler I used Stamp Zia colorwash sprays on watercolor paper. You just randomly spray whatever colors you want, allowing each color to dry before applying the next. That’s it! You can make up pages at a time and cut them later for use on cards. For added interest you can spray over a mask – anything will do – artificial leaves, plastic shapes, etc. Zia’s sprays are very vibrant, as you can see here, but there are other sprays out there – Adirondack and Ranger come to mind, and there are also glimmer sprays that provide a beautiful shimmer.
Once the colors were applied I stamped some random squiggle lines (also from Stamp Zia) in black and added dots of metallic ink. At this point I knew I would use this as an underwater scene – but in looking through my stamp collection I couldn’t find any “cute” fish to go with it. Fortunately I had this digi fish image. I have no idea where it came from (really need to label my digis better) so if you recognize it let me know!
The fish were colored with several copics in the YR series, cut out and popped up, with one fish placed slightly off the page.
The sentiment is from one of the first clear sets I purchased many, many years ago, probably at Hobby Lobby and I don’t have the original packaging and don’t know the company.
Thanks for stopping by today!!
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that we spent much of last week on Pensacola Beach, where the beaches were free and clear of oil and tar balls. No sooner had I posted when I turned on the news only to find out that overnight a bunch of oil had washed ashore and that while the beaches were still open, the water was off limits for now because of the oil. I feel like a jinx!
On to better thoughts….I really love it when a card comes together on the first try. When I set out to make a card, my usual process calls for a series of samples – testing out the image, coloring and sketches before I decide on the final version.
I had this particular sketch and image in mind and as I started putting it together somehow all the test pieces worked perfectly the first time.
I stamped the cherry blossom (from Stamp Francisco) in versamark and embossed it with a sepia colored embossing powder from BMuse. The image was colored with SU pink markers and an aqua brush for a water colored look. The pale blue background was also color washed with bashful blue ink. The sentiment, from Flourishes, was stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa.
Here is a close up of the chocolate cardstock. This piece is embossed – or debossed really – with the Leaf plate from the LetterPress Holiday – Thanksgiving set.
A note about the white cardstock. For this card I used Cranes Lettra cardstock. I purchased this specialty paper to use with my Letterpress kits. The paper is made by Cranes specifically for letterpress. It is 100% cotton and has a wonderful softness to it – like, well, cotton! Since it is 110lb weight it is stiff enough for a no layer card and perfect for letterpressing because the plates deboss, or engrave, so well in this cotton paper.
So – why did I use this paper for “regular” stamping instead of saving it for letterpress? A few reasons. I had the top piece left over from another project and I wanted to see how well the paper did with regular stamping, wet embossing and watercoloring.
I am happy to report stamping and wet embossing worked perfectly. With the watercoloring, I first started with a blender pen and did not get good results, so I switched to an aqua pen and achieved the results you see here. I’m thinking that because the paper is 100% cotton it works well with a wash of color and water, and while it is not watercolor paper, it held up well.
Since the main panel was the Cranes Lettra paper I decided to make the base card with the same paper. It is heavyweight, but very soft and because of the high quality that goes into making this paper the overall card ended up “feeling” like a high quality card. The paper is expensive, but is perfect for no layer cards and letterpressing.
Thanks for stopping by today!
You ever have one of THOSE days?
While trying to get my mojo back, I made this card for this weeks clean and simple sketch challenge at SCS. It’s apparent that my mojo has not returned (I think I threw it away by mistake while cleaning the stamp room last weekend)
So, this morning I could not stand to look at it and took it apart. I salvaged the card base and the stamped images and created something slightly different, but a little better (imho!). While this version does not meet the challenge criteria at least I felt better about it!!!! The images were stamped on Fabriano Watercolor paper using Brilliant Blue and Green Galore markers. The blue and green papers are from The Paper Company Seaside collection. The stamps are from Stamp Zia (nautilus), Fred Mullett (starfish), and Flourishes (scallop and sentiment).
I made a Letterpress mess this morning. I purchased the L Letterpress kit a few days ago and tried it out this morning. What a mess! Ink all over the place and a letterpressed image that was far from the quality impressions you see on their site! It is going to take alot of trial and error with this machine and I hope I can make it work. If you are just starting to try out this machine you want to be very careful to line up the plate and your card, and inking the plate requires a very delicate touch to prevent getting ink on areas that you don’t want ink. You know how when you ink a rubber stamp and some ink gets on the edges where you trimmed the stamp? Then you stamp the image and you have those areas that ended up with ink on them and they end up on the paper? The same holds true for the letterpress plates only it’s a little harder to make sure the ink is only on the raised portion of the plate.
Anyway, i’ll need to do more playing around with this machine before I can post.
I didn’t think I would find the whole Facebook thing interesting or appealing ……until I signed up!! I already spend way too much time on the computer and this just adds to that problem. I’m sure the newness will wear off after awhile, but until then I’m enjoying connecting with my family members from around the country and with friends I’ve lost touch with over the years.
If you’re on facebook, let me know!
thanks for stopping by!
Today is my dear, sweet, wonderful husbands birthday! Happy Birthday honey!
I usually keep this blog for stamping related posts, but I could not let the day go by without wishing him a great day.
Orvil is such a great guy – kind, generous and funny. A Navy veteran who loves dogs, nature and his beloved corvette. I know I fall somewhere in there as well! He is such a great handyman around the house, but loves to kick back and relax as well.
For his birthday I revamped this card into a birthday card by changing out the sentiment. When we moved to Florida he put up a bunch of birdhhouses and feeders in the backyard and I’ve been amazed at the variety of birds that we’ve attracted. It makes spending time on the back patio so much more interesting. So the birdhouse theme card seemed perfect.
He looks at the card and marvels about how great it is, then starts really looking closely at it. Finally he says – “what’s with the button?”. You know guys – if there is a button it should be there to hold something together, right? I explain that it is merely decorative (doesn’t he know that buttons are all the rage now?). I’m not sure he understands the concept…
Anyway – happy birthday dear!!
SEASIDE CREATIVITY 