Today, I’m over in the Ellen Hutson CLASSroom with a review of two interactive card dies. There’s also a special offer included in the CLASSroom post for the HOWnow Fold It, Pop It, Flip It, Zip It! Interactive Card Making Class. I’d love to have you visit.
Category: die cuts
Just Cut Tulips
I’ve been watercoloring with Distress Inks a lot lately – stamped images, die cuts, whatever I can find that will take the ink.
You have to give a little visual leeway with this card in terms of whether the tulips are really in the watering can (that right-hand tulip leaf is sticking out!). I got to this design the long way round. At first, I planned to put the watering can, which is cut from Strathmore 140 lb cold-press watercolor paper and colored with Broken China and Vintage Photo, directly on top of the stamped and colored tulips. But when I watercolored the cast shadow, it was a mess. (I’ve subsequently practiced painting cast shadow bases!)
The dry-embossed card base, with the circle cutout, is my design fix for the poorly painted cast shadow. By the way, the Bazzill 100 lb. cardstock is becoming my go-to supply – even dry-embossed and holding the watercolor panels, it’s standing strong.
Supplies:
Paper Smooches: Welcome Spring
Today, I’m sharing a card based on a photo I recently took of the view outside. It was a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest – the birds were chirping, the sun was out, and the trees were in bloom (they still are although this tree’s blooms were battered down by some recent rain).
Although I’ve recently been doing a lot of watercoloring, for this card, I stamped and heat embossed patterned paper to capture the spring colors. I stamped the tree pieces and butterflies on a variety of papers until deciding on these colors and patterns.
I dry-embossed the hill, which was cut with the Border die out of Easter Grass cardstock, using the Sizzix Plaid embossing folder to introduce some texture. The Blueprints set has a stitched die with which I cut the blue paper and the green hill at the same time to give a clean finish to the edge.
I’m linking this card up to the current Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge – “Anything Goes.”
Penny Black: Live for Today
It’s a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m sharing a spring-themed card created with Penny Black supplies.
To begin, I cut a watercolor paper panel and applied Distress Inks to it and then sprayed it with water. After drying it, I added some more ink from my craft sheet. It took several applications of ink and water, followed by drying, to get the panel to my liking. After the panel was dry, I stamped it with the Penny Black Star Ivy [#40-310] background stamp from the brand-new Bloom release and heat-embossed it with white powder.
I stamped and heat embossed one of the sentiments from Penny Black’s Life’s Messages [#40-237] set. I’m particularly fond of the messages on this image.
I cut the bird and branch out of watercolor paper with the Perched [#51-031] die cut. In the same manner as I did for the panel, I applied Distress Inks, sprayed it with water and dried it. I finished everything off with a piece of May Arts twine.
Watercolored Die Cuts
I was inspired by Jennifer McGuire’ss post on watercolor die cuts and decided to give the techniques she showed a try.
For the first card, I watercolored the Marianne Design Bird on Branch, cut from watercolor paper, with traditional watercolors. I placed the bird over a background of watercolor paper colored with an application of Tumbled Glass Distress stain sprayed with a Mini Mister.
For my second card, I decided to use the same die cut in an inlaid design.
For this background, of watercolor paper, I applied Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers and sprayed with water. I dried the background with a heat gun and decided it needed more color,so I sprayed it with Tumbled Glass Distress Stain in a Mini Mister. Still wanting more color, I smooshed the Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers ink pads onto my craft sheet, spritzed the sheet with water, and put the watercolor paper into the pool. The bird and branch die cut were colored with Distress Ink markers following Jennifer’s technique and then sprayed with water. I liked how the water evened out the application of the markers. I finished the card with a heat embossed sentiment.
Supplies: sentiment for top card from Penny Black
