Climbing Rose Card

Snipped off a climbing rose today, and tried my hand at watercoloring it. I first used a watercolor pencil to create an outline of the image on Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. I then began painting the image with my Schmincke watercolors. I didn’t capture the painting process as I’m a little rusty, but I did have fun adding yellows and purple tones to the red tones. Once I had the base done, I felt the need to turn to my Prismacolor pencils to brighten the reds and cool down other parts of the image. Before doing that I used a little black pen on the edges. Here’s the original flower and before pencil stage:

So, next step was to add a little orange and white, poppy red and purples to the image with pencils, and paint in some leaves. The pencils ended up adding a nice texture to the petals. After I added the leaves I decided to add a muted background, and this is where I ended up:

I think I played around with the flower a little more with pencils to make the reds pop even more and with the leaves, and then, I added more background interest with watercolors. I also added black and white dylusions ink by tapping the ends of the spray bottle tops over the image. Finally, I spattered a bit of gold Perfect Pearls that I had wet down with a brush. This this was the result:

Finally, I decided to make a card with this image. I had to use a 6x6 card base to capture the whole image. I found some paper I thought matched and used black card stock to back everything. I added black Nuvo drops and a sentiment from Unity’s Forest Butterfly kit. My friend had encouraged me to get back to watercoloring. So, this card was created for my friend and their family members who are dealing with a tough cancer battle with a sibling.

Hope the explanation of my process helped in lieu of a video. I will try soon to get back to recording my efforts. Let me know what you think of the end result. Thanks for stopping by, till next time, happy crafting.

Love Me, Love Me Not

Tried using one of the beautiful digital sets from Polka Dot Orchard the other day, Love Me, Love Me Not. I’m still new using digital stamps with my laser printer and my IPad. So, this was definitely an experiment. After learning how to play around with the images using Docs, I printed off the sheet and proceeded to add color using Pastel chalks. A messy business, I must say… but I had fun adding and mixing colors from my limited palette.

I ended up really liking the combo of colors and started pulling out a variety of ephemera packs. I definitely had fun playing around and gluing the pieces together. I also used burlap and a fancy ribbon that I also glued down. 

Feels good to get back into vintage cards every once in a while and this kit, besides having great sentiments, has a perfect image for it. This card was also inspired by a special person, that has been battling fiercely the cancer fight. The sentiment says it all for me.

Next, I’ll have to try various papers in my laser printer to give me more media options. Well, that’s it for now, till next time… happy crafting.

Friends of Unity May Blog Hop

Hey, everyone, welcome back to another blog hop with Friends of Unity. This month our theme is Flora and Fauna! Please join in the hop for a chance at winning Unity stamps. Remember to comment on each blog in the hop! As a matter of fact, I’ll be giving away some stamps this month!

I ended up choosing stamps that were more conducive to creating scenes. Since I prefer flora over fauna, I first started with the April Whit Kit, Kindness is Magic. I ended up using the stamp set, paper and Nuvo drops from the kit. I started by stamping the image in grey archival ink. I used several Distress Oxides and a Memento ink to color in the image. I also used a variety of pens on this one focusing on creating a color palette that matched the paper. When I was done, I added Nuvo drops all over and ended up sprinkling aqua sprinkles all over the dots. I backed the image with papers from the pack and called it done.

The second card I created after swimming in my son’s pool... a little cold but refreshing. Looking up from

the pool there’s palm trees in view. So, ready for warmer weather and swimming again, I couldn’t resist pulling this card together. I pulled out the Time to Refresh kit and thought it would go beautifully with Mintay’s beautiful Suntastic paper. I stamped the flower and leaf twice on watercolor paper and painted them with my watercolors. For final touches I used a pen and some colored pencils. I fussy cut them out. I then took the beautiful ocean paper and die cut it down. I embossed the sentiment using archival ink and Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze. I them stamped the frond several times directly onto the paper. I adhered all the pieces, using another 2 papers from the kit for backing and added some Nuvo drops. 

  

Hope you enjoyed my flora cards. Remember to comment before you leave! Now on to the rest of this fun hop with my crafty friends! You should have arrived here from:

Rachel’s blog

To continue, head to:

Amber’s blog

Or, if you’d like, head to the beginning:

Crystal’s blog