Freshly Brewed Projects Blog Hop - For the Guys

Hello again, and welcome to another Freshly Brewed Projects Blog Hop. Today we have the theme - For The Guys, and as Fathers Day is coming up next month in Australia, it is a great way to use the inspiration for you to create some cards for a special guy in your life. But wherever you are in the world, there is a special man, son, son-in-law or friend who would love to get a hand made card.

 

 

 I have chosen to use the stamp set - A Good Man. This set is perfect for the water colouring technique, and I have chosen the simplest form of this technique this time, choosing to use Stampin' Up! Water Color pencils 1 and 2 packs. 

 

 

This detail view shows how beautifully the w/c pencils blend with a little water. Something I love about them is that you have a lot of control over colour placement yet you still achieve the lovely fluid effect of water-colouring. It is such a quick technique that can easily be overworked, so the trick is to leave lots of white space and not colour in the entire area. The "painting" part of this technique took less than 1 minute for this card.

You can get more depth of colour by applying stronger pencil strokes before adding the water. You can also get variety in colour by using different colour pencils on the image before applying the water.

When I was at art school I was taught never to cut water colour paper, but to tear it. So I used a steel ruler against the paper and tore along the edges. I love the slight roughness achieved - it just seems to "go" with this technique and the texture in the paper.

 

I teamed the image with patterned paper from the Boho Indigo Suite, matted onto Night of Navy A4 card and embellished with some Terracotta Tile Scalloped Linen Ribbon. 

My family loves the beach and we are all looking forward to the summer holidays when we can relax and enjoy the sunshine. We've just accomplished a lifelong wish of purchasing a house at the coast, so there will be lots of beach time for us in the future. And that thought is my inspiration for this card. It's a really good thought as I sit here on another cold winter morning.

I plan on giving this card to my husband who works 7 days a week. It's time he slowed down a bit.  I wonder if he will get the message!

 

 

Please see the list of products below and click on any product that you wish to purchase. Feel free to contact me if you'd like more information on the water-colour pencil technique, but for now check out the samples from other creative Stampin' Up! demonstrators. You'll get some wonderful inspiration! 

You are with Ann Craig now, so just continue the hop by selecting the next name on the list.

·       Libby Dyson

·       Jessie Holton

·       Narelle Fasulo

·       Leonie Schroder

·       Kelly Kent

·       Ann Craig

·       Debbie Yeomans

·       Jeanne Moss

 

Product List

A Good Man Cling Stamp Set

[149270]

$42.00

Boho Indigo Product Medley (English)

[153132]

$122.00

Watercolor Pencils

[141709]

$27.75

Watercolor Pencils Assortment 2

[149014]

$21.75

Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper

[149612]

$15.75

Jet Black Stāzon Ink Pad

[101406]

$17.50

Night Of Navy A4 Card Stock

[106577]

$15.25

Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock

[106550]

$17.00

Terracotta Tile 1/2" (1.3 Cm) Scalloped Linen Ribbon

[149705]

$14.00

Water Painters

[151298]

$21.00

Stampin' Dimensionals

[104430]

$6.00

Stampin' Seal

[152813]

$14.00

Stampin Up Easter Tulips & Watercolour Technique

I say it often but I'll say it again - I love water-colouring and I love Stampin' Up! products.

Today I have a very quick card that packs a lot of impact due to it's strong colour and simple design.

This stamp actually comes with the greeting attached to the stamp, but I cut the greeting off and mounted it on a separate block so I had the ability to use the tulip image by itself.

The stamp set is called "Blessed Easter" from Stampin' Up! 

I used Stazon Jet Black ink to stamp the outline onto watercolour paper and then coloured the image with Stampin' Write Markers and an Aqua Pen. 

The image was then matted onto black card and finally attached to a Note Card from Stampin' Up! These note cards and envelopes are really convenient as they come in a pack of 20 pre-scored cards with matching envelopes.

I tried these in a few different colours as well and think they make a lovely little gift set.

The texture of the water colour paper provides the perfect backdrop for colouring and it doesn't matter if the colour bleeds a little outside the image lines - it all adds to the spontaneity of  this technique.

You will need the following Stampin' Up! products to create these cards

Note Cards & Envelopes #131527 $9.95

Blessed Easter Stamp #133212  $20.95

Aqua Painters #103954 $19.95

Many Marvelous Markers #131264 $1889.95

Water Colour Paper # 122959  $8.95

If you would like to give this project a try, you can order these products from my on-line store:

They will be posted directly to you, and Hostess Benefits apply for qualifying orders.

 Until Next Time

Happy Stamping.

A Summer Afternoon with Stampin' Up.

Summer is slowly disappearing in the Southern hemisphere and usually I would not be looking forward to winter, but this year I have a wonderful journey to the USA planned for our winter. So bring on winter!

It is quite a while since I've ridden a push bike, but this gorgeous stamp by Stampin' Up! has me thinking about borrowing one and having a go! The stamp is from the Hostess Only stamp set named SUMMER AFTERNOON and I used it to demonstrate the blender pen water-colouring technique to some of my customers. If you love that stamp set (Annual Catalogue) you will just have to host a Stampin' Up! party to get one, or you can email a qualifying order to me and I'll have it posted to your home address. Contact me via my Demonstrator Business Website

The BLENDER PEN  is very convenient to use for water-colouring - just squeeze your ink pad so there is some ink on the lid, pick up the colour with the Blender Pen and colour away. We all commented how it made us feel like we were back in Primary School, but we noted just how relaxing colouring is. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the original colouring, but suffice it to say that I was less than happy with it, so showed the girls a little trick that helps to hide any flaws. You guessed it - you run your stamped image through the BIG SHOT  with an embossing folder. I used one of my most versatile folders - SQUARE LATTICE - I come back to that one over and over as it's great for male cards, backgrounds and covering mistakes!

Don't you just love that sentiment? It is from a wonderful Stampin' Up! set called FEEL GOODS and you will find it on page 21 of the Seasonal Catalogue.

I decided this card needed something more so stepped it up a bit with some embellishments and coloured matts. The detail shot shows one of the styles of brad from ANTIQUE BRADS teamed with my old favourite - LINEN THREAD.  The blue base card has been stamped with a texture stamp and the black and orange card help tie the composition together.

Did you also notice some light sponging over the greeting? That just takes away from the starkness of the white card background. The "faux stitching" is done freehand.

Here is the finished card:

Hope you enjoyed the card and that you will try out some of the featured products.

Until Next Time

Stay Crafty!

Watercolour Easter Images for Cards

I had a bit of fun this week creating some cute little Easter Cards using one of my favourite techniques - WATER-COLOURING.

I really love using the watercolour paper from Stampin' Up! The quality is excellent and it allows you to quickly colour the images and obtain lovely colours ranging from brights through to subtle colours. It all depends on how much water you add to the colour. 

I also love the additional texture created with the water-colour paper. 

To create the card I used some Daffodil Delight Designer Series Paper from the Brights Patterns Collection, Tempting Turquoise card stock to layer onto a Whisper White card base and Pretty In Pink to frame the water-colour paper and greeting.

 Pretty In Pink Taffeta Ribbon completes the embellishments.

 I used a combination of Classic Inks and Stampin' Write Markers as my colour source and applied the colour with an Aqua Painter. This is a very quick technique and enables you to achieve nice variation in colour. I used Jet Black Stazon Ink for the stamped images. 

This is a quick post for a quick card.
If you wish to obtain further information about the technique or where to purchase some of the products please contact me via my Demonstrator Business Website

Hope you all have a very happy and safe Easter Holiday wherever you may be.

Until Next Time,

Stay Crafty