Posts tagged ‘Snow swirled’

February 24, 2018

Watercolour Christmas card …

Hello and welcome. Myrna has set a watercolour challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week. I have been itching to use my Gansai Tambi starry watercolour paints since I got them at the Happy Stampers event held last autumn…

The Happy Stampers craft event is held twice a year in the picturesque village of Port Sunlight in Wirral. I went with my friend, Debs – she loves crafting as much as I do, so we had a great time and made a day of it, having lunch at the lovely Tudor Rose tea rooms close by, where they serve delicious homemade food and cakes.

We watched a fab demonstration using these watercolours in shades of gold and the lady made it look so easy! The paints are gorgeous – they shimmer and shine beautifully, I just had to have them…

This challenge gave me the opportunity to play with these fab paints.  I made myself a sample so I could see exactly how the colours would look…

I painted the colours across the tree stamp from the Snow Swirled stamp set by Stampin’ Up and stamped it onto a piece of watercolour paper.  I wasn’t sure about the result at first – it didn’t look like the one from the demo! 

I think the stamp I used was too detailed – this technique would work much better with a solid image. 

It looked almost blurry and I wasn’t happy with it, but the shimmer and shine you see when you tilt the card was lovely so I walked away to let it dry, deciding to come back to it later with fresh eyes …

Once dry, I added rhinestones in various sizes and was so much happier with how it looked …

I mounted it on layers of gold and copper mirri board and stamped a sentiment and forked-tied bow.

It’s hard to capture the shimmer in the photos but it is so pretty in real life. 

I hope you like my card for this week.  We would love for you to join us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown and show us your beautiful artwork. 

It’s great to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a message.

Thanks for dropping by today

February 10, 2018

Watercolour snowflakes in shades of blue …

Hello and welcome. Myrna, our hostess for February at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, has set a colour challenge to use shades of blue …

I made my own background paper by stamping snowflakes from the Snow Swirled stamp set by Stampin’ Up in a random pattern in versamark ink onto watercolour paper. I covered this in white embossing powder and heat set it, taking care to keep my heat tool moving and heating from the back too, which helps to reduce warping of the paper. 

I then wet the paper all over and used 3 shades of blue gansai tambi watercolours by Kuretake, dropping the colour in a random pattern onto the paper, adding more or less water here and there, and left to dry. 

My original idea had been to use this as the background and add the sentiment over the top, but I loved how it turned out and didn’t want to cover it up, so added it as a panel and made it a feature of the card, putting the sentiment to the side.

I kept the sentiment panel fairly simple, stamping the sentiment in night of navy ink, then inking over the same snowflake stamps in soft sky ink – not too easy to see on the photographs, but so pretty in real life.  Snowflakes, die cut in soft sky cardstock, were added as embellishments and I added some basic rhinestones for sparkle. 

It’s difficult to show the textures in the photographs, but the watercolour panel is so pretty with the texture of the watercolour paper and the white embossed snowflakes – I’m so pleased with it!  So I hope you like my card for this week.  We would love for you to join us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown and show us your beautiful artwork. 

It’s great to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a message.

Thanks for dropping by today

%d bloggers like this: