Ellen Hutson's June 2017 Pin Sights Challenge

I was so surprised when I went to look for something I'd seen on the Ellen Hutson Classroom and saw that I won the Mix It Up Challenge for last month. I haven't gotten my gift certificate yet, but I was excited to win.  For one thing, Ellen Hutson Challenges require the use of their products and I only have a few things. The gift Certificate will allow me to purchase another of their products that I've admired for a while, the Mondo Peony Stamp and Die Set.  I'm pretty anxious to order it.  It's a more expensive set that I wouldn't normally buy for that reason so I'm glad I'll have a gift Certificate to help pay for that.  I won with the entry on the right which was made with the BCRF Fundraiser Set called Courage.

Anyhow, when I was on that site, I saw the newest Pin Sights Challenge and wanted to play. I just love the colors in this challenge - the pink and orange in particular.  There's a touch of Yellow but the whole combination is just so pretty and summery!  We can use the shapes, the objects or whatever we love about the inspiration to be inspired by for our design.  For me, It's a combination of the colors and the flowers.

The Mondo Magnolia is one of only two Ellen Hutson Stamp Sets I have and it can be water colored so I chose to use that.  I started by heat embossing the magnolia in Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I wanted to make a card for a girlfriend using my "Fabulous" die designed by Julie Ebersole and was a gift with purchase a couple of years back around Thanksgiving.  You can purchase it now and I've linked it for you.  

To color my bloom, I grabbed three acrylic blocks and smooshed Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon and Fossilized Amber - one color to each block.  I did a light wash of color over the entire bloom with Picked Raspberry.  I wet the entire bloom with clean water first and then dropped in the color while it was still wet so that it would spread out and make each petal light pink to begin with.  There were a few areas where the color didn't touch at all initially so those areas remained white. Once that was dry, I went in and did a second and third layer of color because I wanted something more vibrant.  Next, I wet each petal again and went in with the Ripe Persimmon and put that color only where I thought the shadows would be. This let the Ripe Persimmon mix and mingle with the Picked Raspberry.  For the final color, I mixed a little Fossilized Amber with some Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist to drop in the yellow color on the petals and then misted the whole thing with Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist.  When it was nearly dry but not quite there yet, I used my fingers to shape the outer petals a little bit. That is a little trick I learned from my friend Yana.  

I die cut a Scalloped Top Folding Card Base from White Cardstock and adhered the magnolia to the card base with a piece of 1 inch scor-tape on the back.  It's such a strong adhesive that it will hold just by placing it in the center of the bloom.  I heat embossed the "hello" from the Altenew Label Love in Antique Gold as well and then trimmed it out to go above the gold die cut word, "fabulous" so that it would read "Hello Fabulous".  It is always hard to photograph White on White cards, but this one worked out pretty well and you can see all of the shimmer on the bloom.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and seeing my project.  I hope some of you will be able to check out the challenge and participate in it with me.  There a $50.00 Gift Card to the Ellen Hutson Store up for grabs.  

Simon Says "We Can See Clearly"

Over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog this week the theme is "We Can See Clearly" and the idea is to use a transparent or semi-transparent "medium" on your project.  For me, most of the time, it will be vellum.  I love the effect of getting a softer shade of the same color family that using vellum provides.

For this card, I used a piece of Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select Vellum with the Anna Griffin Acanthus Embossing Folder.  This is a thick vellum that will hold up to embossing although some care is required.  If you use a thinner vellum, it essentially "breaks" the vellum into pieces making it unusable.  The effect of embossing this vellum is that it gives a raised outline in a soft white to add texture to your card or project.

I especially liked it on this card because my Mondo Magnolia Die leaves a narrow white outline to match.  This magnolia is part of the Essentials By Ellen Collection and was designed by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson, LLC and is a favorite of mine.  One of the things I like best about it is the size. Once you have that image colored how you want, it is very quick to pull a card together. No fuss, no muss as it does the talking for you (mostly).

I also used my Totally Fabulous Die, from Ellen Hutson, LLC. Mine was a gift with purchase from Black Friday, but it is available for purchase now. The die comes with a pop up "Totally" but I cut my words apart so I could use just the "Fabulous" by itself.

For the Mondo Magnolia image, I stamped the image using Versamark and heat set it with Ranger Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder. I watercolored it using Worn Lipstick Distress Marker in a few layers to get the depth and interest in the petals. I finished it off with a coat of Wink Of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen.

I have lots of projects up to do this week so I will be back very soon with another.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Clean and Simple for the New Year

Unlike some card makers, I tend to mail out nearly everything I make.  I donated a few cards at the end of the year to a Hospice that goes through a ton of cards, so I didn't have any left from last year.  I made a ton of cards last year (I made 60 of them just for my sisters-in-law) but I also mailed a ton of cards.  I have several friends who have been going through a tough time, either due to health issues, or from the loss of a parent, spouse or child.  It's nice for them to get a card in the mail saying hello or I've been thinking of you.  One friend in particular left a big part of her life behind and moved back home to care for her mother who had a rare type of cancer and also help with her father who is disabled.  She has quite the collection of cards that I have made. Just so-so cards in the beginning but now some small works of art.

This particular friend had a ton of art classes and things as a child and enjoys paper crafting and scrapbooking.  In fact, that is how we met several years ago. We are "scrappy" friends.  Whenever I use that word, I am referring to a friend that I met through Scrapbooking or Paper Crafting.  So when my friend relocated a few years ago, all of her paper crafting stuff went in to storage in their old hometown.  Recently they added a building at their new home that will be a dedicated craft room. Electricity will be installed in the next couple of weeks and then she will be anxious to go and get her things out of storage.  I can hardly wait for this to happen as we seem to feed off of each other's creativity.

Having had so many art lessons she especially enjoys it when I send her a watercolor card. I had noticed recently that a color that appeared to be a kind of brownish red is actually a very mauve-y color when you use it to watercolor with. I thought this color would make a beautiful flower, so I sat down to paint it last night after stamping the Mondo Magnolia by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson, LLC and heat setting it with gold embossing powder.



I've gotten where I really like a certain kind of water brush when I watercolor images.  It is made by Kuretake and comes in three sizes - Small/Fine Tip, Medium and Large.  I have 1 of each, but the one I reach for over and over again is the Small/Fine Tip brush.  Simon Says Stamp carries one like it HERE except that the handle is more compact and I like the longer length brush.  My hands are large and capable so I'm more coordinated with the longer handle.  If you need the longer handle, check Amazon.

You can also use a traditional brush (I have a #2, #4, and #8 Silver Black Velvet Round Brush), but for card making, I love the convenience of having the water in my brush.  It's light, compact and I can take it on the go.  When I was painting my Christmas Card fronts a couple of months ago, I had several of them stamped and heat embossed to take with me to a car show we attended in Kansas City.  It was awesome and I was able to watercolor during all of  the sitting around time. Then when we got home, all of my front panels were ready to finish to mail out. It was the perfect thing to do.

I have a small cutting board with a handle that I can tape my panels to for my work surface.  I just use my masking tape over and over as I complete each one. This also works great if you are coloring more than one image at a time as you can set one aside to dry while you work on the other.  If you have the stuff out, it's just as easy to make two cards.  I often stamp and emboss 2 images in case I mess one up, but that rarely happens anymore.

This particular panel has some of the gold embossing powder that I don't like too much, but it was ready to go so I just went with it.  Since I thought my granddaughter was going to be painting it, I had embossed it on Canson XL 140# Watercolor Paper which takes more water better than the 96# Bristol I usually use. I've found that if I just work my way around the image one petal at a time, by the time I get to my 2nd layer of color the first layer is dry.  This works for me on Canson Regular and Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper.  It helps that I'm so familiar with how each of my water color mediums works.  I do not wet my paper for this method.  I put color down at the base of the petals and pull that out with water.  I'm using only color and a water brush.  For this image I used Tim Holtz Distress Marker in Aged Mahogany.  I absolutely adore the ease with which I can water color using the Distress Markers.  After it was painted, I went over the entire flower with my Clear Wink of Stella Pen for that shimmer that you all know that I love.  I left it overnight to be thoroughly dry.

I came into the studio this morning and cut the panel with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle in the largest size. I die cut the Mama Elephant "hello" from some DCWV Gold Foil Card Stock and then laid my die cut across that panel where I wanted it to go and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the Embossing Mat instead of the Cutting Mat to impress the image into my panel rather than cutting it. That makes it easy to get your die cut greeting in exactly the right place.  I adhered the front panel to a 110# Top Folding Card Base.  A few faceted gold gems in a visual triangle finishes off this card.



Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you enjoyed yet another watercolor card.  In case you hadn't guessed it, Watercolor is my favorite technique!  Please feel free to comment if you stop by and I'll see you again soon.

Mondo Magnolia

Today's card was created partly at the request of a follower on my blog and partly from my need for a card that follows a neutral color theme.  My follower wanted to see one of my florals done in cream color which is no small task when it comes to me and watercolor.  I have a hard time leaving enough "white" space all of the time, but I know this about myself so I started in with that fact in mind.

I have a few thank you cards to make now that the holidays are over. I stamped the Mondo Magnolia, designed by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson, using Versamark and Simon Says Stamp Ultra Fine Gold Embossing Powder and heat set it.

This particular card stock is the Canson XL 140# Water Color Paper.  I don't have much of this left and I probably won't buy it again simply because I prefer the soft white of the Canson Bristol Water Color Paper that I buy from Amazon or Hobby Lobby with a coupon.  I also have some Fabriano Water Color Paper for my upcoming Watercolor Class that I will be taking at the end of January and it is also more cream colored than white.  I really love the soft white of the Bristol Paper that I have been buying.  I can actually buy it from Amazon.com for less than I pay with a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby.  You can see it here: Canson Bristol 96# 11 x 14 - 25 Sheets.  I know enough about what I am doing most of the time not to need the 140# version which will take a great deal more water than the Bristol does.  With practice, you just learn to work in one area at a time and do your painting in multiple layers so the paper will not pill. There are a few places that make brighter white water color paper, but for card making, I'm good with what I'm currently using.  If I ever get to a point where I'm trying to do fine art prints, I'll invest in better paper (*smile*).

Using a water brush with a Tim Holtz Distress Marker in the color Antique Linen I colored the flower.  I tried to keep the left side of the petals slightly darker by putting no color at all on the right side and trying to keep a bit more of the super sheer cream.  Antique Linen is just the palest hint of a color.  I tried a couple of other colors, but they just weren't the correct color family.  I have a beautiful Magnolia Tree in my yard that we got a couple of years ago.  We had so much rain last spring that even though we had lots of blooms, they didn't last long.  Sometimes they didn't even last a half a day before they got pelted by the rain and knocked off.   I did get to study and enjoy the blooms for those few hours that the sun was shining.  I feel like my color is a very accurate representation of the color of my magnolia.  I would like to have a Tulip Magnolia with its lovely pink blooms, but I think we'll see if we can keep the one we have alive first.

Once I was finished water coloring the bloom, I went over it all with my Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen.  Once that was done, I cut the panel with the Sunshine Layers Scalloped Rectangle from WPLUS9 Design Studios.  I applied that to an A2 Top Folding Card Base that I made from SU! Crumb Cake card stock.  I die cut the Mama Elephant "thanks" sentiment and attached it to my scalloped panel using Ranger Multi Medium Matte which finished this card.

I'm anxious to try to color the Altenew "Magnolias for Her" image using a similar technique (you know--a light touch) and that will most likely be my next project as I need a few more thank you cards.

I try to make cards that are appealing but not overly fussy; Classic and Elegant is my goal.  I hope you enjoyed this super simple card and if you did, please feel free to leave me a comment.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you again soon.