Autumn leaves with Distress Stains

Oh my goodness it has been such a long time since I posted to my blog! I am sorry that I have neglected it for so long and I will try to do better.

I was asked by a friend to make the invitations for her 85th birthday party with fall colors. I made 3 different cards for her to choose from and she chose this one. The card base is actually cream not white as it looks here. To make this leaf I colored the stamp with Distress markers, spritzed with water, stamped onto watercolor paper and then cut out the leaf with scissors.

When she told me she needed 100 I knew that this would be a mammoth undertaking as the stamp would have to be cleaned before each stamping and cutting out 100 leaves with scissors left me thinking that there had to be an easier way! Later she upped the number of cards she needed to 175 so then I knew for sure I had to find a better way!

This tutorial is what I came up with using Distress Stains and a maple leaf die from Spellbinders.

This is the new card.

Experiment

Well I am back. I have been doing a lot of experimenting with different coloring tools. My comfort zone is Prismacolor pencils and OMS and I have neglected other media, some that I have had for a long time.

For this experiment I used watercolor pencils and markers and watercolor paper. I need more practice, especially with the flower centers, but the objective of the exercise was to compare the tools. They all worked pretty well using a water brush. The Distress markers and Koi watercolor brush pens are limited in the shades of yellow in the sets. Overall I prefer the Inktense watercolor pencils but the Tombow markers come in a close second. I have one more watercolor media to try which is watercolor crayons.

Color Love

I have joined another class with Joanne Sharpe that is all about color. This is the title page for my journal for this class.

This is only day two of the class and I am already learning so much about supplies I have but don't use much! For this page I used watercolor paint, Tombow markers, Inktense watercolor pencils and Prismacolor pencils. If you would like to join this fun class you can sign up HERE it is a 'forever' class that you can take at your own pace. I will be updating here with new projects that I make in this class.

Old school?

I have finally made a card! I decided to make something I haven't used in a long while....a stencil!

The silhouette is a digi. The stencil I used is Marianne Designs Emily 1. After embossing the stencil twice using a lightbox and embossing tool and cutting with a knife I used a clear Stardust Gelly Roll pen to go around the outer edges of the embossing and the lines of the veil on the hat. I don't know if this enhanced it or not but it is what it is LOL  Does anyone use this method of embossing anymore? It seems like we are all going to the cut and emboss dies. While there are many pretty ones out there what I don't like about them is that you get the outline of the die embossed onto your paper.

Back again

  I didn't realize how long it has been since I updated my blog! I have been busy with real life and also making some birthday cards for a friend. (She wanted 36)! These are a couple that I made using brush markers.

'Watercolor' flowers with Copic markers

While practicing the watercolor flowers I learned in class I began to wonder if I could achieve the same look with markers on cardstock. I don't particularly like the look of watercolor paper with white cardstock and I don't have an off white cardstock. This is the result of my experiment and I rather like the look!

This is a tutorial on how I did it.  Click on the picture to make it 

larger or you can download a PDF file to print HERE

 

 I would love to see what you do if you do try it so send me a link to your blog if you do! It really is easy and you will have a unique image for your cards each time. I had lettered the sentiment but you can just as easily use a stamp.

Mojo vacation

While my mojo has been on vacation I took an online class from Martha Lever called Color Drop Flowers. (scroll down to find the class) I highly recommend it! I have had so much fun practicing painting these flowers and also my lettering. Joanne Sharp has another class that just started called Artful Alphabets (scroll down to find this class)

I still need more practice with my lettering and a shaky hand doesn't help either but it is still fun!