#1031 – Vitamin Sea

Hello and welcome! We’re finally starting with the Happy Little Stampers challenge!! Yay!! As always, the watercolor challenge comes up first, on the first of the month! And this time, there is an optional theme ‘Wings‘.

However, this time, I didn’t go with the theme and went with the ‘Anything Goes‘ option. And here’s what I made –

I went seawards! I thought the mermaid would be fun to watercolor after such a long time. She’s from Waffle Flower Mermaid Mail stamp set, and so are all the other images. I stamped them in light toned inks and then watercolored them using distress ink. The watercolor paper is from Hndmd. Once everything dried, I added a few splatters of blue and purple, but dried them off with paper towel before they dried completely. This ended up showing off the splatters without the colors being too deep.

For assembling, I used a white card panel to cut out a window using the MFT Watercolor Wash, then adhered it over the watercolor panel. I had thought of adding the sentiment in the watercolored panel, thought after adhering the frame, I felt that there was too much space below, so I ended up stamping the sentiment on the top. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp Be a Mermaid stamp set, which I stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

And that’s my card! Hop over to the Happy Little Stampers challenge blog to check out what the rest of our DT made for the Watercolor challenge. And join the fun with your own watercolored projects!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

#980 – New Year Wishes

Hello and welcome! As is tradition, I made New Year’s cards for my family this time as well. I wanted to make an interactive/shadow box kinda card for quite some time now, and thought this would be an opportune time for it. The technique is better described by Jennifer McGuire in this video, where I learned it from.

Anyhow, these are the cards I made –

I used a combination of stamps from different companies which worked well together. I shall list them below as well. However, the sentiment on the top of the cards are all the same, from Winnie & Walter Wishing You stamp set. I used Faber Castell Oil pastels to color all the images, and mineral oil to blend them.

For this card, I used My Favorite Things Scene Builder except for the little butterfly, which I hand drew. I used Concord & 9th Retro Petals Turnabout stencils for the background. I added the dots and lines using a grey fineliner pen and Sakura clear glitter pen.

For the inside, I used My Favorite Things Piggy Pebbles, My Favorite Things Scene Builder and Purple Onion Designs Blossoming Perch stamps.

For my second card, I used Purple Onion Designs Blooms 2, the butterfly from Waffle Flower Happy Day and the background Simon Says Stamp Botanical Split. I went over the flowers with a red pencil from Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, then highlighted some areas with a grey fineliner pen, then the flower centers with the glitter pen.

Within the card, I used My Favorite Things Friendly Foxes, Purple Onion Designs Blooms 2 and Birch Tree Background, butterflies from Waffle Flower Happy Day.

For the last card, I used stamps from My Favorite Things Gill Friends and Waffle Flower Mermaid Mail stamps, pairing it with bubbles from Simon Says Stamp Be a Mermaid. I had to add another stamp for the bubbles since they weren’t big enough, and then I drew over them with the fineliner along with the reflected light and the little fishes.

For the inside, I paired the stamps from My Favorite Things Gill Friends and Waffle Flower Mermaid Mail stamps. For the giant sea weeds and those waves in the background, I didn’t have any stamps, so I hand drew them.

I must say, the finishing isn’t the best in all these cards, I had a hard time getting the right measurements for the supports, and then adhering them properly so that they stood up when the card was opened. It definitely wasn’t a total failure, but I felt I could do better with practice. I kept the coloring at relatively low levels, so I could concentrate on the rest of the card, so I wouldn’t feel exhausted, and I must say that was a good decision I made! 😀

But I am really happy to have tried them. They came out well and I have a good idea on how to make further cards if I want to.

I’m joining the following challenges with my cards –

Wishing every one a wonderful new year! Hope this year brings in plenty of new and happy for everyone!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂