Freshly Made Sketches & National Tartan Day...

Good morning, crafty friends.

This post is a little late for the celebration, but last Thursday, April 6th, was National Tartan Day in Canada. It's not an official holiday, just an observance, and has been in effect since 2010. It commemorates the signing of a document of independence in Scotland in 1320. People of Scottish descent can celebrate and wear their family tartan!

I've been playing around with plaid lately, with water colour paint and with alcohol markers. This is a paper version of the clan Macdonald tartan. It's much more beautiful in real life!

 The inspiration this week over at Freshly Made Sketches was all about squares.

Plaids and tartans are definitely all about right angles!  I decided to feature a piece of water-coloured plaid, with some of the stripes done with  opalescent gold paint.

 All squares were cut with Lil'Inker Designs' Stitched Mats square dies, then attached to a 5" square card-base. Along with the water-colour panel, I cut squares from Close to My Hearts' fundamentals collection. These papers have white designs on one side, with embossing on the other. The sentiment is from Catherine Pooler Designs' "Hello World" stamp set. Pretty easy card to put together!

Make sure to check out the amazing submissions over at Freshly Made Sketches.

Fare ye weel!

Caroline

Thanks for the support!

Thank you, QueenB!

I found a new blog to follow while hopping through Pretty Pink Posh's latest blog hop.

Barbara, aka QueenB at The Buzz is also participating in Kathy Racoosin's 30-day Coloring challenge.

Anyway, these cards are direct CASEs of ones Barbara created HERE. Same stamp set, same technique, same card design. Why improve on perfection?

So I made up a big 8x10 sheet of watercolor paper with the black-line emboss-resist image and used watercolor pencils on the flowers and leaves (Inktense) and then a wash of Distress Ink marker (Tumbled Glass) for the sky. I love that you can scribble with a marker on the watercolor paper, and still wash it out. It flows, rather than sinking in.

Then I cut up my panel and created half a dozen 4-bar cards. Cream card base, black stitched mat (Lil'Inker Designs), white-embossed sentiment, done!

I made a couple more cards with the left-over watercolor pieces:

These cards are intended for all the kind folks who sponsored me in the recent 10km race I ran here during the Ottawa Marathon weekend. I was raising funds for stuttering treatment.

My friend Erika and I wearing our team shirts on race day.

Thank YOU for reading!

Happy crafting, 

Caroline

Life begins after...COFFEE!

Slightly warmer temps and longer days...can spring be far behind?

 

The  Coffee Loving Cardmakers don't think so...

They have organized another fun hop. The linky is open through this Friday, March 6th. There are lots of prizes from some wonderful sponsors, and tons of inspiration from the participants.

I broke out some caffeinated supplies from Verve Stamps: the Coffee Stamp set and coordinating word die.

I planted those coffee beans in some watercolour soil, "watered" them with some warm coffee (mug coloured with Copics), surrounded the panel with some sunshiny Bokey patterned paper, and watched those fresh plants sprout.  The sentiment says it all.

 

The card layout is based on Freshly Made Sketches #175.

I flipped the sketch, adding ribbon to the cursive "coffee." Snail courtesy of Paper Smooches "Green Thumb."

Go check out the Spring Coffee Lovers' Blog hop!

Supplies:

Watercolor paper: Tim Holtz

Bokeh paper: Close to My Heart

Cardstock and ribbon: the stash

Distress markers

Copic markers

Stamps: Verve and Paper Smooches

Die: Verve Stamps

Jewel-toned Tangles

 Happy Saturday, crafty friends.

One more water-colored entry to Neat & Tangled's current challenge:

I used the same Tiny Triangles stamp, this time heat-embossed in silver. I washed three jewel-tone inks over top (Peacock Feathers, Chipped Sapphire and Seedless Preserves.  Then I coloured in the outlined triangles with more of those colours, mixing them where the original wash overlapped.

 It gives almost a stained-glass look--love it! 

The sentiment is from a newer Lil'Inker Designs stamp set, "Girl's Best Friend." It was heat-embossed in the same silver, onto vellum to allow some of the colour beneath to show through.

The silver cord finishes the card, along with matting in Rich Razzleberry.

So, two different water-colour looks with one stamp.

Enjoy your day,

Caroline

Supplies:

Colonial white cardstock- CTMH

Rich Razzleberry cardstock-Stampin' Up

Watercolour paper, vellum - Michael's 

Silver cord, silver embossing powder- Paper Wishes

Girls' Best Friend stamp set, Stitched Rectangles die - Lil'Inker Designs

Tiny Triangles stamp - Neat & Tangled

Distress Inks - Ranger

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Hello crafty friends!

Here are a couple of cards, in celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving, which occurs this weekend.

Hubby and I are enjoyed four precious days in Prince Edward Island, closing up the cottage. We had hoped to get here earlier but life this fall has been BUSY. So we haven’t walked on the beach yet, but we both got sunburned faces, sitting on the deck today, bundled in blankets, reading and listening to the wind and waves. Tomorrow I’ll be cooking a gigantic ham, which we’ll enjoy with a big group of McDougall cousins on Sunday (25 people, so we’re having turkey AND ham).

As to the cards, one is a design I CASEd from A Freshly Made Sketches entry by Karen. I loved the little water-coloured panel. 

 I wet my piece of watercolour paper by spritzing it with water, then passed a Mini Distress inkpad over top (Tumbled Glass). The wet paper helped spread the colour, so no lines/edges. I waited for that to dry, then stamped some small leaf images, applying more than one colour of Distress Ink to the stamp. The “thanks” sentiment is a newer die from Lil’ Inker. I cut it three times from coloured card stock, layered and glued, and mounted the reinforced dies above the watercolour panel.

The second card was made with left-overs from a card workshop LAST Thanksgiving. I looked through my digital files, trying to find who inspired this one, to no avail. So sorry, designer! I would give credit if I could remember who you are…

Anyway, I had the card bases and Kraft squares already cut. I stamped the leaves (one of the colours is a new CTMH hue called “Thistle”) curled them a bit with my fingers, then mounted them “falling” across the card. I flicked some Perfect Pearls pigment (gold and copper, mixed with water) across the card in the opposite direction to the falling leaves, for some gentle distressing. Sequins, simple sentiment and voilà!

So, Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and family! Enjoy your long weekend with those you love. Hope you fit a little crafty time in there, too!

Blessings,

Caroline

Stenciled +

 Hola! and happy weekend!

I am WAY behind on my Copics for Cardmakers homework, so posting something I made last weekend, instead.

I LOVE the idea of this blog challenge:

I "found" it last week, through my very artsy virtual friend, Lyndal Higgins.

The challenge is to add texture, dimension and technique to your card-making.

With that in mind, I finished up with some stenciled, watercolor, embossing-paste panels I had made, following Jennifer McGuire's examples, HERE.

I used the Dreamweaver's paste I had on hand, and a stencil I bought from Club Scrap. After allowing the paste to dry, you apply watercolour paint. I believe Jennifer used a texture paste, which absorbs the paint better than the stenciling paste I had. So my watercolouring is kinda pastel; her's were lovely and vibrant.

However, I jazzed it up with a water-coloured stamped image, on vellum. Vellum is EVERYWHERE again! The stamp is last year's, from CTMH (thanks, Diana Saunders, for reminding me it was in my stash!), and I added several colours of Distress Ink, direct-to-paper. I let it dry VERY patiently, and added it to my card front with clear foam tape, from Clear-Tac.

Some falling sequins from Studio Calico and Pretty Pink Posh, and good to go.

As the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday blog involves STENCILS & STAMPS, I've got that covered, too.

Now off to do my "homework!"

enjoy your weekend

Caroline

Supplies:

watercolour paper and watercolour paint set, vellum:  Michael's

cardstock and "blessings of the season" stamp:   CTMH

Stencil:  Club Scrap

Embossing paste:  Dreamweaver's, purchased from Paper Wishes

Distress inks: lipstick, marigold, persimmon, walnut stain; Ranger

Woodgrain sequins: Studio Calico

Flat copper sequins: Pretty Pink Posh

Seize the Birthday {and make a wish!}

Hey crafty peeps. Long time, no blog!

Still adjusting to the empty nest, learning to love my DH all over again, and CLEARING OUT THE MESS left behind by those fledglings...

But! September is a birthday heavy-month for our family, so here's the first of several BD cards.

I'm sending this one in to:

Seize the Birthday's "anything goes" . The actual challenge this week is to use black & white--may try one of those later.

Anyway, today's card uses the awesome technique of water-coloring with embossing folders.

Ink up the embossing folder, spritz with pearlized water, then place your watercolor paper or card-stock inside the folder, and press.  I used Distress ink minis for this one, and Paper Wishes' wonderful dandelion embossing folder.

Inked up the edges with some sponged Tumbled Glass and Crushed Olive ink.

The sentiment is a new die set from the Stamps of Life.  The set includes the words as well as a shadow die.  I used vellum for the shadow, to make the sentiment distinct from the background, but without hiding all that watercolor goodness.

Here's a close-up:

I created perfectly matching letters by inking white card-stock with the Crushed Olive ink.

Final look:

Inside of the card says "make a wish."

Happy weekend!

Caroline

Supplies:

Watercolor paper & vellum--Michael's

Card-stock in Twilight and White Daisy, CTMH

Distress inks in Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Crushed Olive, Forest Moss and Tumbled Glass.

Ranger Perfect Pearls powder; mister
foam tape 
Corner-rounder

Liquid Glass

Wink of Stella glitter pen

Watercoloring with embossing folders

I saw this totally beautiful technique on Heather Telford's blog. She includes links to examples by other crafters as well as the original YouTube tutorial. Check them out!

Anyway, the idea is to smear ink onto the raised part of an embossing folder, spray with water or glimmer mist to make the ink very runny, then slap some paper on, close the folder and simply press...

I used up quite a bit of watercolor paper experimenting. Each panel was unique and made a beautiful card, even if I didn't QUITE follow the instructions right the first time.

First up:  What happens if you run it through your die-cutting machine/embosser. Pretty, but you don't get the full effect of the white design.

Next: version #2 using some grey Smooch Spray as the mister. Pretty but puddle-y!

Version #3: Best of this color-way.

Tried some different color combinations and different embossing folders:

And my favorite:

I used a mini-mister filled with Perfect Pearls powder and water to spray these, and they have a lovely sheen in real life. I used Distress Inks which blend well with water. Final tip: the wetter, the better.

Give this technique a try; it's addictive!

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Just...Hello!

I had such fun playing with Simon Says Stamp's Favorite Flowers last week (see my FMS post, HERE), that I decided to continue exploring its possibilities.

This is a card design I CASED and used for a card workshop back in May.  I had a bunch of watercolor paper already cut to size, so might as well use it up.  I love the look of black line-drawing and water-coloring.  It has a kind of pretty, cartoon vibe.

Orange and pink.  

This is the first version, and I decided to add a little border/definition between the DP and the watercolor panel.

Pink and yellow. 

The border is just a line of Forest Moss Distress marker, drawn across the card base.

Orange and blue. 

I think this is my fave. The shading on the blue flowers turned out especially pretty.

 It's "Anything Goes" this week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog. So these beauties are going to get linked up over there.

Happy crafting!

Caroline

Supplies:

watercolor paper: Michael's

Favorite Flowers stamp set: Simon Says Stamp

Designer Paper: Skylark, Close to My Heart

Hello die: The Crafter's Workshop

Black textured card-stock: Wausau Papers

Tim Holtz Distress Markers

Water brush

Archival Black ink:  Close to My Heart

What's the scoop?!

Hello inky friends,
Here’s another card, made for On-line Card Classes’ Watercolor for Card-Makers.

This time, I “painted in” my stamped image.  Many of the beautiful cards in the class feature flowers. My floral stamp collection was a little thin, so I tried another, more whimsical image.

The cone and ice-cream scoop are stamps from The Stamps of Life.
I stamped the images with Distress ink in Walnut Stain, onto watercolor paper. I moistened the paper with water before adding any color, to allow the paint to flow more.  I scribbled some ink from my Distress markers onto an acrylic block, then picked up the color with a wet paintbrush.
You can build up layers of color, but you have to wait for the first layer to dry or everything kind of mooshes together... Patience is needed for water-coloring! Luckily, all that drippiness looked great on the ice-cream!

This was a lot of fun to make! The color and shading really added depth to the ice-cream cone.  I added a light color wash to the background with Tumbled Glass ink and a “horizon line” with Evergreen Bough.Off to BUY some ice-cream now, at Cow’s Ice-Cream on Prince Edward Island.  Sure sign of summer to come...

Happy painting,

Caroline

Water-Color-Blocking for Color My Heart #93

 Hello, crafty friends!

I'm Guest Designer this week, over at Color My Heart.

They are playing with a four-color palette:

CRANBERRY

HONEY

JUNIPER &

TWILIGHT

I've been "attending" Online Card Classes' latest offering, Watercolor for Card-Makers. It runs this week and next and is full of tips and techniques to add water-coloring to your bag of crafting tricks. 

I think the thing that's impressed me the most so far, is that you have little-to-no-control with watercolouring! Water just goes where it wants to, as in nature. You have to learn to "embrace the splotch..."

For my Color My Heart project, I tried a technique using my CTMH dye-based inks, a 1" square stamping block and a mister.

I applied the block directly to the ink-pad, misted it (the inked-up block) until the ink started to pool, and stamped onto a piece of watercolor paper, creating a color-block matrix of the four colours.

 The above image is one I tried using Distress Markers instead of ink pads.  Much more flowing and blending of the colours (see what I mean about no control?).

And here is the final card:

If the original squares aren't watery enough, you can go back and stamp over them again, after they've dried. For a final smudgy touch, I flicked some drops of water over the card.

The sentiment was stamped in Archival Black ink; the heart was stamped again on a scrap of paper, given the same watercolor treatment and popped up with foam tape.

Grab your ink-pads and head on over to Color My Heart to see some great creations by the rest of the team. We hope you'll get inky with us this week! Challenge rules are posted on the CMH blog.

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies:

watercolor paper, Michaels

Colonial White cardstock card-base, CTMH

Dye-based ink pads in: Cranberry, Honey, Juniper and Twilight, Archival Black, CTMH

Acrylic stamping block

Mini-mister, Ranger Industries

Stamp set, CTMH

foam tape

One of a Kind...Dynamic Duos #100

Grab your paint-brushes, crafty friends! And your tissues.

It's Triple-Threat week at the Dynamic Duos--THREE colours to play with.

BUT

You may also have noticed the auspicious number of this challenge: #100.

Lesley Croghan and Anne-Marie Hile have decided to close the challenge blog, and this will be our last post :(

Anticipating that sad event may be why I had a little trouble getting geared up for my project this week... I didn't have any cardstock or paper close to Pool Party/aqua in my stash, so I had to improvise. I've signed up for the next Online Card Class: Watercolour for Card Makers. The pre-class homework includes getting in some practice dabbling with different media. So I tried some watered-down dye-ink, colouring in a stamped and heat-embossed image.

 and came up with this card.

Wasn't totally satisfied, so I tried again, this time CASEing a design by Laurie Schmidlin.

 I stamped the dress-form three times, in Archival ink, then swabbed some diluted dye ink over top, in the three challenge colours.

Laurie had given each of her dresses a cute accessory. I decided to go all out with just one of them, adding a gathered tulle skirt, resin flower and of course, PEARLS. That led naturally to the sentiment...

Please go leave some love for each of my fellow DT team-mates. They'll need the virtual hugs...

Anne Marie Hile

Annette Elliott

Angel Johns

Caroline Bredeson

Cindy Brumbaugh

Holly Endress

JoAnn Burnham

Julie Gearinger

Michelle Bala

Sarah Fleming 

Tenia Nelson

 AND we really hope all our Dynamic Duos fans will join us for our final challenge! I double-dog-dare you to link up your project!

Finally, a HUGE thank-you to Anne-Marie and Lesley for believing in me and my teamies. We've had an inspiring six months!  

Happy crafting,

Caroline

Supplies:

Tim Holtz water-colour paper

Cardstock in Black, Juniper, Slate, and White Daisy

Ink: Juniper, Honey, Slate, Archival Black (all CTMH); Versamark; silver embossing powder

Ribbon and bling from the stash (all items CTMH) 

Stamp sets: Taylor-made, Home (retired CTMH); sentiment set, The Stamps of Life

Dies: Lil'Inker stitched rectangles die; Spellbinders Labels #2.

Paint-brush and water