Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday

I've been playing with some new-to-me techniques and it just happens that I used the color palette chosen by Shari Carroll for the current Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday

The first card used misted distress inks. I added some Liquid Pearls and a Simon Says Stamp die cut "hello".

The second card used a technique that I recently learned in one of the Online Card Classes -- stamping a pattern in clear embossing powder on patterned paper and then working in some distress ink. I liked the effect and will definitely use it again. The little squirrel is a Hero Arts set benefiting Operation Write Home, which I paper pieced and added to a Hero Arts stamped frame.

I have a lot of fun trying new techniques like this background, and then figuring out how to work them into a card.

11/26/14 update:  Look what I saw on today's Simon Says Stamp Blog:

The following three participants were randomly chosen to win a goody bag from Simon Says Stamp:

Chriss Blagrave
Adele Holcomb
Ancema

I won a prize pack in the random drawing! Awesome!

Simon Says Stamp Challenge

I don't enter the Simon Says Stamp Challenge as often as I would like, but this time the Wednesday challenge is to create your own background, and it just so happens that I have been busy doing exactly that, using stencils and ideas I've seen on various blogs.

First, I loved this hombre card made by mashing a bit of Gelato into embossing paste, and I CASE'd it. The hombre doesn't show up at all in the photo, but it goes from yellow to orange.

I guess, truth to tell, I've CASE'd all the rest of these too, trying out techniques and products I've seen somewhere and pinned to Pinterest.

This last one was a bit of serendipity. I started with a large card front, but didn't like the stenciled squares so I redid them in different colors on another card. Then I couldn't make up my mind what color I liked for the "happy" word, so I kept stamping it on my reject card front. When it was done, I kinda liked it, and thought it would be OK cut down with a stitched rectangle die and mounted on a kraft card base. I often find a way to use my mistakes and that's very satisfying!

Stretch Your Stamps 2

I LOVE OnlineCardClasses.com. This is perhaps the 5th class I've taken, and I always feel like I've gotten my money's worth in just the first couple of days. The instructors are fun and inspiring, and judging by the student cards posted in the Gallery, we've all managed to turn out some pretty nice cards!

Today is Day 4, and although I've watched all the videos and downloaded all the .pdf's, I've only managed to complete two cards, both from Day 1.

I'm at work on a card from Day 3 and I hope to get more done tomorrow when I get home from my knitting group. Love these classes!

Maddy's Scrapbook Page

Maddy spent some time in my craft room making a scrapbook page about her trip to the Loxahatchee River Center. There was a touch tank and it took her a while to work up her courage to touch the sea cucumber, which looked like a giant slug to me. I certainly didn't touch it!

Anyway, the sole extent of my help was to print out the picture she wanted to use, and help her find whatever products she had in mind. Grandma, do you have any lace? Where are the rub ons? Are there any pink letters? The design and execution are all hers and I think it came out nicely. I notice she talked about herself in the third person in the journaling, like I would, but then signed the page in the bottom corner.

I think I'm going to encourage her to scrap every time she comes over and keep her layouts in an album of her own.

My Cards Unboxed at Operation Write Home!

This is the most recent box of cards I sent to Operation Write Home. Sandy said she had filmed it and it was such fun to hear her comments. I see one card that one of my friends made too. This box included a few pieces of "any hero mail" for the first time, where some of my friends helped me write letters to be distributed to any service person. I hope to do some of that in each future box. 

I've already got a good start on a new box of cards. I have such fun making them and it's nice to know that they are acceptable.

Learning to Use Gelatos

I'm determined to learn to use Gelatos, because the colors are just so delicious. Barb kindly let me play with hers at a crop, and I realized that they take a little practice. So instead of rushing out and buying the complete set, I bought two sets of 4 colors each not included in the main set, and got to work.

First here's a practice piece Barb showed me how to do. The cardstock was coated with gesso. When dry, colors were scribbled along the top, then misted heavily until they began to drip. After that dried, she inked up the bird stamp with purple gelato, misted it and stamped the bird twice.

The next one was gelatos scribbled over a white heat embossed background of triangles, which was then smoothed around with my fingers. The gelatos found all of the holes in the embossing and I don't care for the way it turned out. I would try again, probably with a different stamp and probably with a gessoed background.

Then I decided to try scribbling a gelato over a dry embossed background. After spreading it around with my finger, I decided this had possibilities.The actual piece has lots more orange in the holes which didn't show up so well when I scanned it.

I tried Barb's advice next: gessoed the background, worked different colors into the leaf stamp and then misted before stamping. The amount of mist makes a difference; in fact the second leaf is less sharp and no doubt had more water on it. I'm liking this.

Finally, my favorite project and the one that made me decide I "need" the whole set of gelatos. I stamped in black, then stamped the flowers again on scraps of white cardstock. I then colored and blended the flowers without any regard to staying in the lines, because I fussy cut each of them, adhered to the card and added some dots of Liquid Pearls. I LOVE the way the colors blended with my fingertips!

Other things I've learned from YouTube videos:  blend the colors with a baby wipe; use a water brush directly on the color tube to pick up color; shave off tiny chunks to blend with water in a mister; scribble on a mat and blend with water for watercolors. 

I'm having fun playing with these, and like that they are so portable. I will be ordering my full set soon.

I Have a Byline!

I offered to help out in the Community Garden, and before you know it, I was asked to help write an article for the Abacoa Community News about the Earth Day Celebration. Had I known I would be writing about the event, I would have taken notes when I attended, but I did the best I could from memory. I asked Megan, who presently does the write ups, to go over it and change whatever she liked, and she made a few improvements, but most of the article is mine (except for the last couple boilerplate paragraphs about the garden, which I copied from Megan's last article).

What fun to see my byline on my article!

http://www.seabreezepublications.com/papers/1406/AbacoaCommunityNews/index.html#p=22

Tim Holtz June Tag

I've always enjoyed Tim Holtz's 12 tags series, but they've always had too many complex steps and too many materials I didn't have for me to attempt one. This month I happened to have enough of the materials used, and the process was not overwhelming, that I thought I would try one. I was pleased with the way it came out.

Well, that was fun, so I tried various stencils with different distress inks:

And ended up making another, although I still like the butterflies best.

Update 6/22/14: I made three of the stenciled designs into cards today:

Watercolor Odds and Ends

Class is over and I found I had some odds and ends of samples and experiments on my desk. Some of them I cut into words, feathers, a bow, labels and the like. Some were usable as a background. Here's what I came up with to finish off the watercolor bits:

The next class has been announced and it's Stretch Your Stamps 2. I'm excited about that because I had been thinking about taking the first class, but it's so much fun to take the classes live and be able to interact with the other students that I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Anyway, I registered today even though class doesn't start until July. These are great classes and I learn so much!

Watercolor for Cardmakers, Day 11

The Gallery and Forum are closing and I've at least been able to do one or two projects from each day's lessons (thank goodness for this catch-up week). Today I finished two cards from Day 11:

Day 11, Card 2. My first attempt at this one was a big, muddy mess. The second time around I let more of the color show, but try as I might I couldn't get my black any darker than gray. I first embossed my sentiment directly on the panel. It looked great suspended there among the cosmos, but it didn't entirely emboss and I couldn't fix it with my white pen so I ended up re-stamping the sentiment on black paper.

Day 11, Card 3. This project on vellum went pretty well. The white pen "stitching" on the back did not show up on the front at all, but did no harm. Ordinarily I would adhere vellum with glue underneath the flowers where it wouldn't show, but the vellum was curled and would not have laid flat. I gave the back side a shot of spray adhesive, which warped the vellum a bit and I didn't get a perfectly flat result. If I work on vellum again, I would sew it to the background. Sequins cover some of the spots I'm not happy with, although I liked the card better without them.

That's the last of my watercolor efforts for now. Tomorrow the next class will be announced and I can't wait to see what's coming up!

Watercolor for Cardmakers, Days 1, 7, 10 and Bonus

Finished 4 more cards today.

Day 1, Card 2: I like these bright swatches of color confined within a space.

Day 7, Card 2. This turned out better than I expected. It helped that the stamp I used had some areas of shading that made it easier for me to pull color onto the petals and keep in mind what parts should be darker.

Day 10, Card 1. I like the way the distress inks blended over the watercolor pencils. I could have done a better job on the top two butterflies as it's hard to see the definition between them. I also have a butterfly stamp just this size, so I inked up the body and antennae and stamped them. 

This last one was designed and presented by a young woman still in her teens, and it's one of my favorites!

In the entire class of 11 days and a bonus day, I've only had one disaster that probably is not salvageable (although that won't stop me from seeing if I can work over it tomorrow). I have one more card I'd like to make on vellum, and hope to try that tomorrow.

Watercolor for Cardmakers, Days 2, 8 and 9

Yeah, I'm skipping around, trying to choose the most do-able projects. Today I finished a card using one of the earliest watercolor techniques, and cut the speech bubble on the Cricut:

Day 2, Card 9

Day 8, Card 3

Day 9, Card 1. This little tree was fun and easy and made me feel like an artist! LOL

I have two more projects in mind to represent days 10 and 11, and I also have a couple watercolored panels sitting under a stack of acrylic blocks to flatten. Hopefully by tomorrow they will be card ready.

Watercolor for Cardmakers, Days 1, 3, 5 and 6

In keeping with my plan to try one project from each day's lesson while the Gallery and Forum are still open, I completed a few more cards today:

Day 1, Card 1:

Day 3, Card 3. I did this one twice. Interesting to blend the colors but I'm not nuts about either end result. I did like using an acrylic block to stamp the background though.

Day 5, Card 2. I did this one twice also -- the first one on watercolor paper and the second on heavy-duty cardstock. There is a slight difference in color with the watercolor paper being a bit softer. I didn't have distress markers and just painted with distress inks instead, so I didn't get the gradient that was shown in the lesson. Now distress markers are on my wish list!

Day 6, Card 1

This was the best stamp I could come up with in place of the large tulips in the lesson, and there weren't as many opportunities for shading. I may go back and make a few of the petals more vibrant, although I don't think it will improve it much. Still, it was fun blending colors on each flower, and I did get a little shading on the leaves. I really liked adding the background by first prepping each section with a little water.

I have a few more projects started on my desk. It seems to work to do the watercoloring one day, and the cardmaking the next!

My Messy Craft Desk

Here is what my craft room looked like when I finally got back into it today:

I hate working in a mess!

Watercolor Day 4 Card

I am way far behind in my watercolor efforts. I knew going in that the class would conflict with my sister's visit, but didn't know that we would spend a couple days in Miami when Brian was having surgery (highly successful!) and that Paul and Angela would ask to spend a few days with us while they are house hunting. We were busting at the seams with people I love! So I've barely had time to look at the daily videos, let alone try any techniques. Class is technically over, with one extra week to catch up on projects and I've got my work cut out for me! I'm thinking I will choose one project from each day and maybe I can accomplish that.

Now that everything is back to normal, I spent a couple long-anticipated hours in the craft room. I painted a couple panels for Day 3 and Day 5 but haven't yet made them into cards. I did, however, finish this very fun card with watercolor dots:

Very simple and I will definitely do more of this!

Watercolor Day 1 and 2 cards

I snuck in an hour today to make cards out of two of the watercolor backgrounds I made for class.

Day 1, Card 3. I rediscovered my little Xyron mini -- it's perfect for vellum.

and Day 2, Card 5. I didn't put the rubber cement on heavily enough and I had a little bleed through, but I was able to wet the area and fade some of it out with the help of a brush and paper towel. I liked this technique a lot and will try it again.

It may be next week before I get another chance to craft some more, but I am so much loving this class! I can see I have no way to get caught up before the end of catch up week, but my goal is to complete at least one card from each day's lesson, and post it in the Gallery.

Day 2 Watercolor for Cardmakers

Day 2 of class, and today we used watercolor pencils for the first exercise.  This turned out OK and the pencil marks are mostly gone since I didn't scribble very hard:

I couldn't do the second one as I don't have rubber cement. I will pick some up next week and try masking.

The third technique had us putting distress ink on a stamp and then misting it moderately. The first time I used too little mist. The second one I misted more heavily which blurred the words more, like the class sample:

I have another word stamp I will try when I get a chance, and I'll try using even more mist to see if I get even more of a watercolor look.

This was going pretty well, so I tried a different stamp, but didn't give it enough water to look watercolor-y. I gave it a second spritz without re-inking, and got a very faint second generation stamp on a scrap:

Also tried Hero Arts' Tiny Flags stamp. Again, it needed more spritzing.

Last, I inked up a stamp with Hero Arts daubers and misted. This came out better.

I still need to make some of these into cards and/or use the bits for die cuts. It may be several days before I get back into my craft room to play, but hopefully I can at least look at each day's lessons until then.