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 🙂

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November 27, 2015

Time for Tinsel

Amy Jasper As You See It Challenge, Christmas As You See It, card, challenge, Christmas, colour challenge, Gorgeous Grunge, Stampin' Up, star framelits, Versatile Christmas 1 Comment

And here we are, in British Columbia, Canada, with the frosty cold weather finally upon us, the crunchy snow squeaking under our feet, the “whoah-that-was-close” feeling when you slip on a patch of ice and catch yourself just in time, the thoughts of Christmas decorations and all the crafty plans to make the season bright, and the cozy pleasure of drinking rum and Eggnog by the fire.

This is a season filled with warmth of heart. Family, friends, good deeds, and good food, all contribute to internal warmth when the weather outside is frightful.

Christmas cards are part of the sharing of that warmth – warming the hearts of others. The colour challenge for today’s As You See It Challenge might help you warm someone from the inside out!

Love these crazy colours. The Real Red and Bermuda Bay combo is wild and playful, while the Mossy Meadow is the “calm it down” addition to the trio.

I decided to work with a lot of white space to make my card bright and wintery with pops of colour to keep it fun!

I used the Whisper White Thick Cardstock for the card base (LOVE that stuff!), then did a narrow mat layer of Whisper White under the decorated layer of Whisper White that is paper pierced all around the edge using my Paper Piercing Tool, Stampin’ Pierce Mat, and my Updated Essentials Paper Piercing Pack. That layer is raised on Stampin’ Dimensionals to allow the shadow beneath it to accentuate the paper piercing detail.

The decorated layer of Whisper White was stamped using the splotch images from the Gorgeous Grunge Stamp Set. I used Bermuda Bay and Mossy Meadow ink. Then I added the strip of the Holiday Fancy Foil Designer Vellum, before placing my star image with the sentiment.

The sentiment is from the Versatile Christmas Stamp Set and is stamped in Jet Black Stazon Ink on Whisper White cardstock. This was then carefully die cut with one of the stars from my Star Framelits. I then used my Paper Piercing Tool again with the template to add the paper piercing detail on the star.

The star was adhered to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

The little stars were created with the Confetti Stars Punch from Whisper White cardstock and Red Foil paper. These were adhered with the very beloved Fine-Tip Glue Pen, perfect for adhering all your little detail items to your projects!

The Red Pom Pom trim and the Bermuda Bay Baker’s Twine were the perfect compliment to the playfulness of this card design.

Be sure to stop by this Tuesday to see what I have for blog candy!! It’s coming!

Have a great weekend! Be sure to play along this week with this fun colour combination. I hope you share what you come up with by linking it to the As You See It Challenge Blog. I can’t wait to see!!