Stay Beautiful

It's a long holiday weekend so that means I had the opportunity to work on my next Altenew Educator Certification program project!  This class was called Polychromatic.  As you can imagine, this class focused on ways to use multiple colors on your projects.    The instructor is the fabulous Nina-Marie Trapani!

My favorite lesson was the one that did watercoloring with similar colors.  Plus, I recently got my hands on some black watercolor paper and I was itching to try it out!

Let me walk you through my process.

I chose to use the lovely Leaf Clusters set.  My watercolors are Finetec Mica watercolors.  These show up so well on the black watercolor paper.  I added small amounts of water to the paint pans.  Then I used a damp paint brush to pick up the color.  I dabbed the paint gently onto the stamp.  I stamped it onto the watercolor paper and held it in place for a bit.  This was so that the paints could absorb into the paper.

Once the images were dry, I cut them out using the matching dies.  Now that I could see the stamp outline clearly, I went back with some lighter, similar colors to add a bit of detail.

I cut another piece of the black watercolor paper and got to work on a background.  I used three of the same colors I had used on the stamps to create a wash background.  I then cut it out with a scalloped rectangle die.

I cut a scalloped white oval as a centerpiece for my card.  I played around with the layout until I was happy with it!

I adhered the watercolor wash panel onto a top fold, A2 white card base.  I added foam tape to the back of the white oval and glued it in place.  Then I used liquid glue to add the flowers.  I did trim off the leaves that hung over the edge of the card.

Now to add the final touches!  I stamped the sentiment using Stay Beautiful from Geometric Flowers and Friend from Frosted Garden.  I then glued the sentiment rectangle onto a piece of vellum just slightly larger.  I also added foam tape to the back of it before adhering it on top of the flowers.  And last, but not least, I added a sprinkling of sparkling clear sequins.

I hope you have enjoyed my project today!

~Kristina

Supplies used:

Geometric Flowers - Altenew Shop at: Altenew	Tombow Mono Multi Liquid glue Shop at: SBC | EH	Therm O Web Foam Tape Shop at: SBC | EH	Frosted Garden - Altenew Shop at: Altenew
Leaf Clusters Stamps - Altenew Shop at: Altenew	Leaf Clusters Dies - Altenew Shop at: Altenew	4mm Sparkling Clear sequins Shop at: EH	6mm Sparkling clear sequins Shop at: EH

Tea Pot

I can hardly believe it but I have managed to make a fourth card for the Coffee Lovers blog hop!  This time I went with a tea theme.  I really LOVE coffee but I also enjoy tea so I wanted to show it some love.

First thing I did was to create the main card panel.  I cut a piece of natural ivory cardstock down to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2".  Then I used an embossing folder from Stampin Up! in the center of the card.  Next I lightly sponged Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide ink over the embossed area and around the top edge of the panel.

I picked out a piece of patterned paper from the Echo Park Coffee Collection paper pad.  I used one of the Hero Arts tea cup dies to cut the patterned paper.  I felt it needed some shading to give it more life.  I used Copic markers BG75, BG72 and BG70.  I just freehanded some lines and blended them out until I was happy.  I gave this a spritz with a gold glimmer spray and set it aside.

Now for those lovely flowers!  I used the Flower Silhouettes stamps and dies from My Favorite Things for all of them.  I pulled out my Altenew mini ink cubes to find inks that would coordinate with the patterned paper.  The colors I picked were Blush, Coral Bliss and Heart Beat for the pinks/reds.  Forest Glades and Evergreen for the greens.  I stamped out several of the flowers and leaves in various color combinations.  Then I cut them all out with the coordinating dies.  I started to play around with the layout on the card.  I would lay the tea pot over the flowers and moved the pieces around until I was happy with it.

I removed the tea pot carefully and used a piece of Glad Press n Seal to hold all of the flowers together.  I turned the whole thing over and used a combination of the Zig 2-way glue and Tombow mono multi glue to adhere them together.  Then I added glue to the whole piece and layed it down on the card.  I layed a stamp block on top and let it sit for just a few minutes.  While it was drying, I added foam tape to the back of the tea pot.  I peeled off the Press and Seal and splattered gold Finetec paint over the entire card panel BEFORE adhering the tea pot over the flowers.  Some of the flowers and part of the tea pot were hanging over the edge of the panel.  I simply cut them off with a pair of scissors.

The very last step was to add it to a card base made out of 110lb Neenah Solar white cardstock and this bad boy was done!

You can check out the details and the link for the Coffee Lovers blog hop HERE.  Don't forget to use #springsummer2019clh!

Bye for now!
~Kristina

Neenah Solar White Shop at: SBC | EH	Tombow Mono Multi Liquid glue Shop at: SBC | EH	Tonic Studios-Retractable Craft Pick Shop at: SBC | EH	Zig 2-way glue pen Shop at: SBC | EH
Therm O Web Foam Tape Shop at: SBC | EH	White Gelly Roll pen Shop at: SBC	Shop at: SBC | EH	Copic Marker BG75 Shop at: EH
Copic Marker BG72 Shop at: EH	Copic Marker BG70 Shop at: EH	Altenew Green Fields ink cubes Shop at: Altenew | EH	Altenew Tea Party ink cubes Shop at: Altenew | EH
Altenew Red Sunset ink cubes Shop at: Altenew | EH	Flower Silhouettes stamps, My Favorite Things Shop at: EH	Flower Silhouettes dies, My Favorite Things Shop at: EH	Echo Park Coffee Collection paper Shop at: SBC
Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide ink Shop at: SBC | EH

Marshmallow Snowman

Howdy and hello!  I don't know about your neck of the woods but it has taken an abrupt turn to the cold here.  Yikes!  I'm really not ready for this at all.  I am ready to create with adorable winter type images though.  One of the newest digital stamps "Marshmallow Snowman" from 2 Cute Ink fits the bill.

Can you handle the cuteness?!!

I reduced the transparency of the digital stamp so it would be gray instead of black.  I then printed it out onto watercolor using my laser printer.  Then I picked out several distress inks to use as my watercolors.  I ended up with Chipped Sapphire, Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers and Tumbled Glass.  I put clean water down first all around the snowman.  I then used a palette to squish the pads against.  I added water to give them a liquid consistency.  I just started randomly adding the colors to the water already on the background.  I let it sit overnight to dry.

The next day I picked up where I left off.  I mixed a little bit of Pumice stone with water and silver Finetec watercolor.  Again I put down clean water first in the snow area.  I used a brush to dab on the Pumice Stone mixture.  I heat set it and then went back to add more layers until I was happy with the results.  I heat set it again. 

Now I moved onto the snowman himself.  I did all of the small areas first.  Spun Sugar for his cheeks, a mix of Carved Pumpkin and Ripe Persimmon for his nose, Black soot for his hat and buttons and Wilted Violet for the scarf.  I heat set everything.  For the white areas of the snowman, I just kept watering down the black soot until it was pale enough.  I concentrated the darker color near the edge and spread it out with water. After heat setting, I went back and added a few more layers to the scarf, the hat and the body until I got the dimension I was looking for.  Heat set yet again.  I wanted to have even more detail so I went over his stick arms with Black Soot.  I used a black glaze pen on his buttons, his mouth and his eyes.  Once the eyes were dry, I added little dots of white.  I then used the same white gel pen to add highlights to the nose, hat and the snowman body.  I also added the striped detail to the scarf.  I mixed white paint with more of the silver finetec and lightly splattered the entire card front.

Once the card front was dry, I cut it down to a 4 1/4" square.  I glued it onto a 4 1/2" purple layer.  I applied a generous amount of foam tape to the back of the purple paper.  My white card base is a 5 1/8" square.  To the base I glued the striped piece of Doodlebug patterned paper.   The striped paper is cut into 5" square.  I then put all of the layers together.  For the finishing touches I added a couple Doodlebug Sprinkles and a few drops of Crystal Stickles.

Now, hurry over right HERE and pick up this adorable digital stamp for yourself!

Have a fabulous day!
~Kristina