April 21, 2017

Watercolour Birch Trees

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques As You See It, colour challenge, watercolor, woodland folder 0 Comments

Welcome all who are faithful followers and all who wandered over here by chance. I hope you enjoy your stay!

I admit to scrambling for this As You See It Challenge. I missed telling you all about the challenge two weeks ago – card made, but blog neglected. That’s how it goes sometimes when your Stampin’ Up life takes a back seat to your family life. As it should. Family first.

I did not want to disappoint you this time (or let myself down again). My card was created very last minute and I am writing this post at 5:30 am, scrambling to complete it for the 6am deadline. (I’m already 15 minutes late!). I was actually a little bit grateful to my husband last night who started watching Monty Python’s “And Now for Something Completely Different” with my 13 year old son when I had already said I would spend time with my son watching Merlin on Netflix. They got caught up in the hilarity of their show (I even had to pause to watch a bit), so I took advantage of my sudden free time and used scraps from a class to create my card for this colour challenge from the As You See It Challenge Blog.

I love the Woodland Embossing Folder from Stampin’ Up! It is one that I use over and over again. I just recently discovered how easy it is to watercolour around the embossed edges of the paper. This is what my scraps from my last class look like combined with this colour challenge:

Pretty pretty pretty!! I think I’m in love!

With my Woodland Embossing folder and the Big Shot, I embossed the trees on a 2-1/2″ square piece of Watercolor Paper from Stampin’ Up! Then I used my Aqua Painter and picked up ink from my ink pads (Pink Pirouette, So Saffron, and Garden Green) and coloured between the trees, careful to stay within the guidelines that the embossed edges provided. Once I was happy with my blended background, the trees looked too plain, so I dipped my Stampin’ Up Aqua Painter into some Tip Top Taupe ink and accented the birch bark. With some watered-down Tip Top Taupe ink, I then washed some shading on the right side of the tree trunks to give them some dimension.

Once I was happy with my final result, I allowed the watercolouring to dry. Then I used the Clear Wink of Stella to create some shimmery splatter among the trees by tapping the brush over my finger above the paper. Glorious!!

The rest was just like we did in my class the night before: I used the blade of my Paper Snips from Stampin’ Up to texture the edges of the Watercolor Paper. This is an old technique that I haven’t used in quite a while. I think it creates a nice contrast to the smooth white background on this card.

Assembly was easy after that. Adhere the 2-5/8″ square piece of Pink Pirouette cardstock to the top middle of the 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Whisper White cardstock. Stamp the sentiment from the Weather Together stamp set below and to the right of the pink square using Garden Green ink. Wrap Linen Thread around the cardstock and tie a bow to the left of the pink square. Adhere the watercoloured piece to the Pink Pirouette square using Stampin’ Up Dimensionals. Finally, use Stampin’ Up Dimensionals again to adhere the entire assembly of layers to the Thick Whisper White card base.

VOILA! A lovely card that I will be proud to give to someone to thank them for putting up with my inconsistencies and blunders!

Seriously, thank you for continuing to come back even after I forget to post each week 🙂

Save

March 24, 2017

April Showers

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Techniques 2017, As You See It, card, challenge, framelits, love you lots, photopolymer, Stampin' Up, technique, watercolour, woodland folder 2 Comments

What do you get when you combine the Woodland Embossing folder, Watercolor Paper and the Watercolor Pencils from Stampin’ Up? Well, scroll on, crafty friends, and find out!!

The As You See It Challenge Blog has a new challenge every two weeks. Sometimes it’s a sketch or a colour combination. Sometimes it’s an assortment challenge or a theme challenge. This one is a fill in the blank challenge! Whoohoo!!

Though autumn is my favourite season, there is something about every season that I love and there is no season that I dislike. Although, of all the months of the year, I dislike February the most. By the time February comes around, I’m very “done” with winter. February is so dreary and dirty as the snow starts to disappear and the dirt and brown grass becomes exposed. Yuck!

But usually, part way through March and moving into April, we start to see more sunshine and the green leaves of spring bulbs show signs of life and renewal. Soon the colours of spring begin to appear. But it’s the spring rain, that I love the most. It’s the rain that helps wash the old winter dirt away and makes the plants grow and become green again. It’s the rain that makes the earth smell so vibrant, so fresh!

So, for this challenge, I focused on the rain and the colours of spring.

The beautiful background with the Woodland Embossing folder was inspired by my lovely friend and adopted team leader. She showed me how she used the de-bossed side of the paper (where the trees were indented rather than raised) and coloured the indented tree images with her Watercolor Pencils from Stampin’ Up. Once coloured, she used a Stampin’ Up Aqua Painter to blend the colour with water. It was so pretty, I had to try it! I love the look, don’t you!!?

I added a touch of the Clear Wink of Stella on the right side of each tree trunk to indicate the glimmer of rain in the spring sunshine. The Clear Wink of Stella spatter over the Watercolor Paper also makes me think of raindrops sparkling in the sun.

The rest of the card is all about layers and paper cutting, really.

The ladybug duo is from the Lots of Love Hostess set. I stamped them on Watermelon Wonder cardstock with Jet Black Stazon ink and used the Real Red Watercolor Pencil and a Blender Pen to the outer edges of each ladybug. Then I fussy-cut around their bodies (cutting off their arms, legs, and antlers … I mean antennae). I drew in their arms and legs with my Project Life Pen afterward.

The umbrella canopy image was stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink on Daffodil Delight cardstock and the handle image on Smoky Slate cardstock. Both were die cut with the coordinating Umbrella Weather Framelits.

The sentiment is from the Love You Lots Hostess stamp set and is stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink on the Bermuda Bay cardstock.

As for the rest: Basic Black cardstock for the card base. A layer of Basic Gray cardstock. A few Basic Rhinestones. And a flourish of looped Silver Metallic Thread.

Be sure to try the Watercolor Pencils with this Woodland Embossing folder. So pretty!!

Happy Spring!!

Save

March 10, 2017

It’s Your Party!

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, simple and cute 2017, As You See It, birthday, card, challenge, framelits, letters, photopolymer, quick and cute, sketch, Stampin' Up 0 Comments

It’s time for another challenge! For this happy card, I used the Large Letters Framelits and the Festive Birthday Designer Series Paper from Stampin’ Up!

Here’s the As You See It Challenge sketch that is responsible for my creative mojo:

So fun and simple, don’t you think!? At first glance, I liked how the dots on the sketch went light to dark across the page and tried to think of how I could use that in my own design. But my final result rarely goes as planned and I found myself inspired by a deep desire for bright colours to pull me out of the winter blues.

Here’s what I came up with:

I used the Large Letters Framelits from Stampin’ Up! to cut the letters ‘P’, ‘R’, and ‘Y’ from a piece of Whisper White cardstock and stamped the sentiment from the Endless Birthday Wishes stamp set above the ‘Y’ with Melon Mambo ink. I then adhered a piece of the Festive Birthday Designer Series Paper (DSP) to my Thick Whisper White cardstock base before adhering the stamped and die cut Whisper White layer over the DSP with Stampin’ Up Dimensionals.

I added the inside of the letter ‘P’ and ‘R’ using Dimensionals cut in half because those pieces are so narrow. The letter ‘A’ is die cut from Emerald Envy cardstock, while the letter ‘T’ is cut from Tempting Turquoise cardstock. These letters were added to the front of the card using Stampin’ Up! Dimensionals.

For a festive confetti-like flare, I added some Brights Candy Dots. Sadly, these are no longer available, but the current Brights Enamel Dots would be perfect for this card. In fact, if I had them, I would have used the star shapes to make this card even more fun!

I like how this card is appropriate for anyone, male or female and of any age. This one will be for my son, who’s turning 13 this month!

I’m going to have a TEENAGER!!! ACK!!

Save