Technique – watercolouring

Featuring watercolouring

Falling leaves

Hello friends!

It’s going to be a busy day on my blog today as I share some cards I made for challenges that all close today!

First up is my entry for the current Memory Box challenge where the theme is ‘falling leaves’. I used the fabulous palette from the Color Throwdown Challenge this week – red, yellow and brown to colour the beautiful Jasper Leave die from Memory Box which I cut in half so that the sentiment didn’t cover the leaves!

I wasn’t too sure about the background so simply added some splatters before adhering the die cut and sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Anemone Cluster

Hi Everyone!

Today, I’m playing along with this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge

I used the pretty Anemone Cluster from The Ton – which I coloured with Daniel Smith watercolours. I embossed an oval die onto a piece of kraft cardstock. I’m still having trouble embossing dies using my Gemini Junior, I just can’t find a go-to cutting plate combo for my dies. Quite frustrating at times!

Anyway, to complete my card, I heat embossed a sentiment by Clearly Besotted.

Thank for stopping by!

LucieG.

Peony Bowl

Hello friends!

I’ve had this gorgeous Peony stamp set from the Ton since March but I’d been waiting to use it because I wanted to spend my time colouring such a beautiful image. Today was the day! I used my new Daniel Smith watercolours and got to work with the current colour palette from the Color Throwdown Challenge – red, yellow, brown and green.

When I finished colouring, I didn’t feel that I had used enough yellow so I smooshed some Mustard Seed distress ink on my base card – yellow is definitely more visible now!

I didn’t want the sentiment to detract from the beautiful image so added a small Mama Elephant sentiment stamped onto a punched tag to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Color Throwdown Guest Designer Week 4

Hello everyone!

I’m so sad that this is my last post as the August Guest Designer over at one of my favourite challenges, the Color Throwdown. I’ve had a brilliant time – thanks to the DT who have been so kind!

We have another pretty, summery palette again this week – orange, pink, yellow and green. Well with those colours, I just had to choose flowers again! This time, I used a most-neglected stamp (Morning Glory border) from The Ton Stamps which I embossed and then coloured with my Altenew watercolours.

I edged the flowers in a green/yellow combo, but I didn’t feel that the yellow was vibrant enough so decided to cut my Avery Elle die cut sentiment from yellow card rather than a neutral colour that I’d originally planned.

For full details of how to enter this week’s challenge, please head over to the Color Throwdown challenge blog. As usual, the design team has some amazing inspiration:

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Semi Shadow box card

Good morning friends!

It’s time for a new Crafts-U-Love Design Team post! This month I received the amazingly intricate Organic Tim Holtz background die * and a pack of paper by the Paper Boutique *.

I immediately started pondering a way of showcasing the beautiful die with the papers… and here’s what I came up with – I’m calling this my semi shadow box card! I knew I wanted to raise the die cut background and while I probably could have used a couple of layers of foam tape, I decided to adapt a pop-up shadow box card. There are tons of tutorials online – Jennifer McGuire has a super video here, but I decided to create a quick step-by-step too!

Step 1 – Die cut the background die on watercolour paper

As this die is incredibly intricate, I used a metal shim when I ran this through my cutting machine. . You can see that this background die doesn’t create a frame, so you can easily create a bigger die cut panel if you want one.

Step 2 – Colour the image using distress inks

I chose a few distress inks which I smooshed onto a craft sheet, diluted with water and started to colour. So relaxing!

You can see that I didn’t poke through all the waste pieces at this stage as I prefer to colour with those in situ. At the end of the process, I removed all the spare pieces and coloured any bits that I had missed (there’s always the odd branch here and there!).

Step 3 Create a frame and prepare a card back

I chose a piece of paper from the Paper Boutique pack and cut a frame for the die cut piece from it. I used this frame as a guide to create the back of my card which I cut to the same height. I added 3cms to the width of the frame for the base as the two sides would be folded twice.

I then made four scoring marks on the card base – 1cm and 2cms from the left and right side.

Step 4 Score along card back twice on each side

Although I do have a scoring board somewhere, I find it easier to use my trimmer to score card stock.

Step 5 Fold in the sides of the card

I then folded along the score lines to create a ‘Z’ on each side. I folded inwards at the 2cms score line and then the other way for the 1cm score line.

Step 6 Attach the die cut panel to card back

Before attaching the panel, I added some more paper to the back of my card to provide even more of a contrast for the die cut.

I added some strong adhesive to the sides of the panel – I always reach for Scor-tape which is super strong and has stood the test of time for my cards!

I then added the frame on top of the card and finally adhered the Thank You die cut from Creative Expressions to finish off my card.

Although it is only half a box card, it really is amazing stable and I didn’t need to used anything to prop it up!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Products marked with a ‘*’ were sent to me by Crafts-U-Love for this DT assignment.

Fancy Flower Garden

Hello friends!

Another item that I purchased from the new Hero Arts release was the gorgeous Flower Garden Fancy die. It is so pretty…. I love background dies and just couldn’t resist adding this one to my collection.

I coloured all the images with my Altenew watercolour paints and then added some Nuvo drops for the flower centres.

The sentiment die is by Waffle Flower Crafts.

I’m entering this into the current Flower Challenge (anything goes) and the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge (feminine/girly).

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.