SSS Beautiful Flowers

Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Flowers

Hello there!  I am so happy and excited to be moved (mostly) and I am ready to get back to card making.  I am pretty irritated with myself this morning because I had a whole blog post done and accidentally deleted it when I went to put my affiliate links in.  A new post is not going to write itself so I just have to chalk it up to experience and move on.

Since we are in a new subdivision, there aren't any mailboxes yet and we're having to pick our mail up at the post office.  I was excited when I went to get last week's mail yesterday and in there was my order from Simon Says Stamp!  I could hardly wait to get home and ink it up but there were a lot of other things requiring my attention yesterday so it was late in the day before I got to ink it up.  I need to get back to those things soon so I have to be brief here - or at least try to be brief.

This week's Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #99 is Coloring in honor of  Kathy Racoosin's 30 Day Coloring Challenge.  This is her 10th Challenge that she is hosting.  Kathy says that even if she only has 5 minutes to color each day that it makes her feel better and that's how she started these challenges a few years back.  I actually think I came on to the scene after those started so I didn't even know about them for a while.  The current challenge is on through the entire month of June, so check it out and join in if you like.

My particular coloring of the Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Flowers Stamp Set was inspired by a rose that my mom had when I was little called "Peace".  You can check it out on Wiki if you like here.  You can see other derivations of this rose there as well or by googling Peace Rose Images.  The particular derivation I like is called "Chicago Peace".  I actually painted this from memory before I thought to google the images and I am pretty happy with my results.  I could have added a bit more pink to the edges of the petals but I love how the rose goes from deep rich yellow to coral to pink all in one bloom.  There's also a recent release of the Peace Rose Forever Stamp. 

I heat embossed the bouquet using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I kept my coloring very simple using my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens in Bright Yellow, Olive Green and Dark Green.  I think I could actually have used a fifth color in Pink, but I am going to leave well enough alone for this time.  I'm really happy with how mine came out.

This card is for a friend of mine who celebrates her birthday today.  We met each other 34 years ago as our husbands are great friends and have been for even more years.  She knows we've been moving so she isn't expecting a card and it will definitely be late but she'll still enjoy it and appreciate it.   That is kind of the story of my life this month as I think I've missed quite a few birthdays during this process.

Just for your information, this is a 5 x 7 card.  I couldn't bear to cut off any of the beautiful design to make a smaller card, so I didn't! 

I am thrilled with my new studio space and even have a logo on the way to put on the door so folks will quit asking if it's my "craft room".   The men kind of roll their eyes as if there's no way they'd let their wife have such a room.  I'm still trying to figure out my arrangement of furniture and I can't do it 100% until all of it is here.  My bookcase is the main thing I am missing right now and to be honest, I'm not sure there is anywhere it will fit. I hope it does or else I have to figure out something else.

By the way, this photo was taken at 4:30 a.m.  You can see in the background that it is night outside.  How awesome is it that I can take photos with no flash because of the lighting I put in my studio space?  That was the plan but sometimes plans don't work out so I was excited!  If you're wondering why I was up so early, it's because the dogs woke me up needing to go to the bathroom.  My sweetest little girl, Holly, licks my face until I wake up. When I tried to ignore her and go back to sleep, she kept licking me so I won't fall back asleep until I let her out.  That was the end of my sleep for today. 

I have the latest Altenew Build-A-Flower Release to play with this week and some old favorites that I want to visit so I'll be back soon. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  The supplies I've used are linked below for your convenience (Affiliate links may be used).

Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Finetec Mica Watercolors - Golds Shop at: SSS	Gemini Full Size Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS
PTI Berry Sorbet Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Spellbinders 5 x 7 Matting Basics A Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Embossing Mat Shop at: SSS	SSS Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS
SSS Beautiful Flowers 6 x 8 Stamp Set Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Tonic Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS	Versamark Ink Shop at: SSS
Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers - 48 Set Shop at: SSS

Simon Says Stamp Designer Spotlight

I am very excited to be the Designer in the Spotlight this month at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog and I'll be here every Wednesday all month long. This week we are featuring Winnie & Walter products for our theme of Girl Power.  You don't have to use Winnie & Walter products to enter the challenge, but if you have some, we would love to see them used.

I also wanted to mention that Simon Says Stamp generously provides a $50.00 Gift Voucher each week for each of their blog challenges. I actually won one of these right after Christmas and got to splurge on a purchase. That was a lot of fun!  Thanks again to Heidi for providing that each week.

Winnie & Walter have several sets of Sentiments and I love their The Big, The Bold & The (fill in the blank) Series of stamps.  I have quite a few of them with the coordinating word dies. I only have one Winnie & Walter stamp set with images, so I decided to try making a spring-like friendship card using Happiest of Holidays.  I make and use a lot of encouragement cards or "Just a Note" kinds of cards and the sentiments in this set are very sweet.   

Sometimes, as a card maker, I have a tendency to make things more difficult than they need to be.  My original plan was to make something more complex and when I was finished, I didn't like it at all.  So for my second attempt, I wanted to try out this stamp set.  This card is very simple but still very pretty. The combination of colors on the card (Neenah Desert Storm and Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue) with the soft watercolor is just right - not overdone or underdone. 

I started by heat embossing my images onto a panel of Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper.  I did the branch first, then the bird house and bird and once I finished water coloring, I added the sentiment.  With heat embossing it is important to use some type of powder tool between each layer of embossing to maintain a clean image.  The powder eliminates static and also picks up any stray oils from your hands that the particles might stick to. I like to use baby powder and a big fluffy brush but you can use an Embossing Magic Powder Bag, corn starch or even kitchen flour.

I colored this with a combination of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and Distress Ink.  I used simple coloring with a Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush in Size 2 with a tiny bit of water with markers in Light Blue, Blue Grey, Light Grey and Grey.  I have the equivalent of the 48 set.  I started with the 36 set and added the additional colors individually.  Simon Says Stamp carries the sets and each individual color of the Zigs. That means you can get a few and try them out, or get a set and add in any extras that you want. The background was done with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink on an acrylic block, more water and a Size 6 Silver Black Velvet Paint Brush.  When it was dry I hit it with some Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Mist and let it dry again. 

Once everything was dry, I die cut the panel with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die. Then I cut the Desert Storm Cardstock with MFT Blueprints 15 (discontinued) and made my card base from Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue. I assembled everything with Kokuyo Dot Runner Adhesive. I thought about adding a few sequins to the card or some Nuvo Drops but I felt like that would have been too much fluff for such a simple style. If I hadn't painted the background, I think it would have been okay.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  The supplies I used are linked below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used at no additional cost to you).

Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper 9 x 12 #140 Shop at: SSS	Cuttlebug Shop at: SSS	Distress Ink Mini - Tumbled Glass Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS
Neenah Desert Storm #100 Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Size 2 Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Size 4 Shop at: SSS	SSS Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS
SSS Stitched Rectangles Dies Shop at: SSS	SSS Surf Blue #100 Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Spritz Shop at: SSS
Versamark Ink Shop at: SSS	W&W Happiest of Holidays Shop at: SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers - 48 Set Shop at: SSS

Bright & Beautiful

Today I have a card for the AAA Card Challenge #89 which is a CAS Challenge with a theme of Bright and Beautiful this week. That means that your cards needs to have clean lines and lots of "white" space with minimal layers or embellishment.  I actually make quite a few cards in this style so that when I give them away, they are good for mailing without extra layers or extra postage. While I love the look of well done shabby chic style cards, I can rarely pull that look off so a clean and simple style suits me well most of the time.

In my efforts to get back in the groove of work this week, I made an attempt to get some things off my desk. I had stamped this Kind Soul Stamp on a watercolor panel several weeks ago when I first received it, but it's been sitting on my desk ever since. Right now, I seem to be in the mood to watercolor but like everything else, it goes in stages. This is a WPLUS9 Design from Dawn Woleslagle and she has done all the hard work for us by creating this stamp in a bouquet that will fit vertically or horizontally or anything in between on a card front. There is also a coordinating die. This is good since I like to heat emboss and it's a lot more difficult to keep your embossing clean when you are also doing masking.

I'm not an artist and I don't have an art background so leaving white space is harder for me than it might seem. It's a struggle to control how much water you are using and how much color, etc. I really struggle with leaving some of the white showing through on my petals and such, so I practice although I don't know if that is helping me get better. If it's presentable is the main thing I care about and it doesn't matter to me if it's technically correct.  The moral of this story is to keep trying.  I have a long way to go but I think this was an improvement for me.

To color my image today I used Clean Color Real Brush Markers in Persian Blue, Deep Green and Violet. I used my favorite greeting from Altenew's Beautiful Day and stamped it in Versamark on the black Number the Stars Banner then heat embossed it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder which continues to be my favorite gold. With the black centers on the anemones, it was the perfect finishing touch. Elaborate can be pretty, but making cards has taught me an appreciation for simple elegance as well.

Queen Alexandra Poppies for the Simon Wednesday Challenge

I've had some computer problems this weekend so I got a bit of downtime while hubby was checking everything out.  I had stamped this panel with Versamark and Heat Embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder several weeks ago to watercolor when I had a chance. I decided Friday Night would be a good time to paint this for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with a theme of Anything Goes.  This stamp is called "Poppy Gems" from Penny Black.  Simon Says Stamp carries a huge selection of Penny Black stamps and I have a few of the floral images. I love Queen Alexandra Poppies (the Pink ones you can see right below).

I always associate Poppies with Bossy Joscie now as she plants poppies each year and her Instagram always says the pictures are taken at Flower Road Farm which is such a happy sounding name, don't you agree? I first saw a Queen Alexandra Poppy in my mom's back yard quite a few years ago.  I don't know if they are annuals or perennials. I used to know about lots of flowers and usually had some planted but my hubby has a habit of mowing over them so I gave up several years ago trying to have any in my yard.  He planted a couple of Dahlias for me a year or two back, but even those got mowed over when they were barely up out of the ground, so I gave up. That's probably why I do so many floral cards, because I miss having them in my own yard to look at.

To do my watercolor I used two Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens in Light Pink and Deep Green with a water brush. As always, watercolor is about the layers so I just added in the color one layer at a time and deepened it where I needed to on the additional layers. Like anything else we do, it takes a bit of practice and I have no idea if the method I use is technically correct, but I'm okay with that.  I just enjoy the process of building the color layer by layer.  I'm getting better about respecting some of the white or lighter space in my colors but I still need a lot of practice. I can't tell you how to do this type of card, I can only tell you what I used and what I did.

A big part of watercolor is knowing your mediums and how they react with water.  Get some inexpensive watercolor paper and just try it. Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper is my favorite and I buy the pads of it at Hobby Lobby with a coupon usually.  Sometimes I get it on Amazon but I always take it to Fed Ex and have it cut down into card sized panels.  I also do this with my Stamper's Select White.  I cut one pack in half to make top folding horizontal cards and then I take 3 packs to have them cut in half vertically to make top folding vertical cards. This saves me a lot of time so that I don't have to stop what I'm working on to make a card base.  I use White Card bases 90% of the time.  I still always have at least one pack of paper that is uncut in case I want to make a larger card but that almost never happens. Probably any big box office supply store will be able to do this for you, so check around.

The banner is from the Papertrey Ink Tag Sale Quilted Die Set and I sat and made several up on black and white cardstock the other day while hubby was on my computer.

This is all I have for now but thank you for stopping by and I love it when you take time to leave an encouraging comment.

Hello Lovely

I am jumping on here today with a quick post! This week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge theme is Trio-Tastic.  You have to do something (anything) in threes. I've been really busy this week and with it being Thanksgiving, I'm really trying to get a few things accomplished. So far, I'm not having too much luck. I've been so into making Christmas cards that I have been longing to create something in some fresh "sunshine-y" colors.

I watercolored this beautiful image from the Concord & 9th Hello Lovely Stamp Set in Red and Blue the other day, but I really wanted to create one in these beautiful coral tones.  I'm strongly considering changing my favorite color to coral instead of pink.  I love this shade that Papertrey calls Berry Sorbet.  

This entire arrangement has been drawn for you so there is no masking required. Some people really like masking but I'm not one of them. I love heat embossing, but it's very hard to mask and heat emboss.  I've had success a few times, but not much because masks are sticky, so the embossing powder wants to stick where the mask was covering your image before.  It's a lot of hassle to get an embossed image that is clean so when I find one like this that the entire bouquet has been done for me - well, that's a winner in my book!  I don't mind taking time to watercolor, but masking?  Forget it!

Recently, I've been using a few props in my photos to add some interest but I think I am only going to be doing that for some holidays and special occasions in the future rather than trying to do it all the time. It's getting to be more about the props than about the focus of the blog or the photos and it's taking so much time to get the lighting right etc. that it's leaving me less time to create.  Since this isn't a photography blog but rather a paper crafting one, I think I'm going back to basics.  In fact, just knowing that and deciding it, makes me a lot happier.

This is a really simple card.  I stamped the image onto Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper with Versamark and heat embossed it using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  To watercolor it, I used a "trio" of colors - Mowed Lawn Distress Marker, with Light Carmine and Pink Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens. The random gold splatters you see there are part of the stamp.  Once I had all the water coloring done and it was dry, I went over each of the blooms with my Wink of Stella Glitter Pen.  The blooms are just luminous in real life. I cut the panel with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die and set it aside while I stamped my sentiment.

The sentiment comes from the Sugar Pea Designs Kindness Matters Stamp Set.  I cut one of the smaller Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles from the same watercolor paper to stamp it on. Again, I used Versamark with the Simon Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  Once that was done, I mounted both to a top folding A2 card base made from Papertrey Ink Berry Sorbet Cardstock.  A few Gold Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh finished this Clean & Simple card off.

Thanks for stopping by today and if you'd like to leave a comment, I very much appreciate and enjoy reading them.