• Using Dawn Woleslagle's technique of stamping in distress ink then rolling the edges in a second color for blending worked great. Love how this one turned out.



    Stamps: Mama Elephant - Waterblooms
    Ink: Distress ink in Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean
  • This is my first time really trying to freehand watercolor an image. I was really inspired by Jennifer Rzasa freehand style and Dawn Woleslagle's colors and roses. Really gorgeous stuff! I started with 3 circular-ish blobs of water on the watercolor paper. Then I used some watercolor paints to start the base colorwash. They were really light and not blending as much as I'd wanted so I started to use my Derwent Inktense pencils. I touched my wet brush to the pencil lead and the color was certainly intese but it gave the images so much more depth. I kept trying to think of the way that Dawn had painted her roses. This was quite time consuming but it was a good experience. I think the hardest thing about watercolor painting in general.. is the waiting! If you don't wait for parts to dry, the rest of the picture can get muddled. Definitely had to be patient for this one.

  • I'm still not so good at using Gelatos. Maybe I don't wait enough for the water to loosen up the stick. And sometimes I get little flakes inside of the color mixing with water. Weird huh?
    I haven't put this on a card yet, but I will soon.


    Stamps: Hero Arts - Large Open Flower, Sweet Stamp Shop - Elegant Flowers
    ink: Faber-Castell Gelatos in guava, bubble gum, red cherry, lavender, grape, lime, green tea

  • I made this card for my friend Lieh for her birthday (which is totally belated - back in April!!). She's a boisterous and uber friendly girl so I chose a colorful watercolor background and put a few embellishments to liven up the card and create dimension. There are a few sequins, some coral seam binding from Talking Twine and Trim on Etsy, irridescent thread and a couple of small glitter butterflies I cut on my silhouette portrait.

    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Elegant Sentiments
    Ink: Distress ink in peacock feathers, picked raspberry, wild honey, evergreen bough
    Dies: Mama Elephant - Femme Frames

  • I painted the watercolor background with Derwent Inktense pencils first and let it dry. It was a bit bigger than I'd anticipated so I decided I'd trim off most of the white space (to suit the A2 card size) and used mama elephant stamps for the flowers. I let them run off the edge in anticipation of a black mat or card base. Also, because I didn't push down on the stamp as hard as I should have, the ink didn't get into the watercolor paper's crevices. It's ok though. It kind of has a rough feel to the stamped image.


    Stamp: Mama Elephant - Waterblooms
    Background: Derwent Inktense Pencils
    Ink: Hero Arts Black Dye, Delicata Gold

  • Made this one for my friend Alice for her birthday. A few of us joined up to have a lovely dinner and dessert at La Fondue!
    Alice is an uncomplicated gal so I picked a simple and elegant design for her card.

    Stamp: KaiserCraft - Birthday Dies: Mama Elephant - Femme Frames Ink: Distress Ink in Dusty Concord, Seedless Preserves, Worn Lipstick Embossing Powder: Recollections in Champagne

  • I used WPlus9 Fresh Cut Florals stamp for this one. The technique was a mix of Jennifer Rzasa's from Day 3 and a technique by Dawn Woleslagle where she rolled the edges of the stamp in a secondary color to assist with blending. I'm pretty sure it was Dawn but now I'm questioning it myself since I can't seem to find the class video that references the technique.


    Stamps: WPlus9 - Fresh Cut Florals, Lawn Fawn - Sophie's Sentiments
    Ink: Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey

  • I've been playing with watercolor backgrounds since I saw Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner do it. I LOVE the variety of ways to do it and how it turns out after it's dry. This one I used a technique mentioned by Jennifer using rubber cement to protect the stamp images so I could watercolor the background.

    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Balloons, Lawn Fawn - Sophie's Sentiments Ink: Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed

  • My first few attempts at one sheet wonder cards! I thought this would be a good way for me to make cards for OWH but also for gifting as matching card sets. It's a clever idea and you can find tons of templates on google.
     
     
     
  • Created this card using the free (at the time) silhouette cut file for flowers in a bell jar for my sister. I got crazy ambitious and made it into a shaker shape! I used the belljar shape and created an edge only shape of the belljar using silhouette designer. Then cut 1 layer of transparency film for the bell jar cover + 8 layers of transparency film for the edges to make the center hollow. I threw a couple of sequins and beads in there then glued the cover on. It turned out cuter than I'd expected!
    Admittedly this project did take me a few hours (~5 hours I think) with all of the planning, cutting, gluing. And then I made an envelope for it since the whole card + easel was an odd shape. I used my envelope punch board and made this envelope based on an idea from My Blue Bike 101 who had a video about making coin envelopes.
    It all came together so well! I used a bunch of techniques I was new to or had never done before and was super happy when I was done! And of course my sister loved it which made it all worth while!
     
     
     
     
     
     

  • 
    I had seen this amazing rose cut file used a couple of times on a few crafters' sites. Isn't it gorgeous? It's the 3D rose from Jamie Cripps. My mom loved it. She's got a major green thumb and has quite a few rose bushes and trellises out in her backyard.
    The card base is the doily easel card from Bird's Cards. I love how it frames the huge rose perfectly.
    Then I used a couple of small flower punches (from stampin up) and a little glittery butterfly I cut from my silhouette as details on the Happy Mother's Day tag sentiment.
     


  • Kong and his wife Teresa are friends of my parents with whom they cruise with quite often. He's turning 80 in a few days and my parents commissioned a card from me for his birthday. I don't have any sentiments about being getting old or anything like that.. so I had to make this one up. 
    The car is from an image I manually made shapes for to cut with my Silhouette. Hooray for my Portrait!
    It turned out cute enough ^_^




    Stamps: Simon Says Stamp - Sketchy Banners, Unknown company - script letter stamp set (~10 yrs old)
    Tools: Silhouette Portrait, Silhouette Designer Studio, Stampin Up Flourish Tag Punch