Category: Hero Arts

OCC Watercolor Day 2

Today was another fun day in the Online Card Classes Watercolor for Card Makers class, in which we had a second day to explore watercolored backgrounds. I’m sharing two cards based on cards shown by Debby Hughes in today’s class. I’ve substituted stamps in my stash for those she used on her cards.

DayTwoRaspberry

DayTwoPeacock

Both cards use the Hero Arts Simple Leaf background stamp.  For the top card, I inked the stamp with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, gave the stamp about ten squirts of water with a Mini Mister, and pressed Ranger watercolor paper, smooth side down, onto the stamp. For the second card, I stamped with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink using the same method. To be honest, I’ve hardly used this stamp because I got stuck on it being a leaf motif. I like the Batik-like feel it gives, stamped with this technique.

Debby is a master at adding accents to her designs, in this case, black and white with touches of gold. I stamped an Impression Obsession Thin Line background stamp with VersaMark ink on vellum and heat-embossed it with Hero Arts gold powder. I used stripes of the heat-embossed vellum on both cards for a gold accent. Both card sentiments are from Hero Arts.

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.

WatercoloredBird

For my second card, I decided to use the same die cut in an inlaid design.

InlaidWatercolorDieCut

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

CAS3: You Make Me Happy!

Today, I’m sharing a CASE of a card by Tami Hartley from the Online Card Classes CAS3 class. I’m still in the process of going back through the class  material trying designs and techniques I missed. There’s so much information and inspiration packed into these classes!

Happy

Tami’s card was a single layer crafted on cardstock. I made a few modifications, creating my panel out of watercolor paper and adhering it to a cardstock base. The background was created with a combination of inks, both Hero Arts and Distress. The Hero Arts inks do not move a lot on watercolor paper. After applying the Hero Arts inks, I filled in with a wash of the Distress Inks. Once the panel was dry, I stamped the Penny Black Dots in Space with Mint Julep ink and then stamped the Raindrops in Pool. Next, I applied some Picket Fence paint to the area where I was planning to stamp the sentiment. I used my finger to fade out the white paint. Once that I was dry, I stamped the sentiment from On Fun. I’m looking forward to creating more watercolor backgrounds, testing the Hero Arts inks on different papers, and layering background stamps.

Supplies:

CAS3: Day Nine

I took the day off yesterday from the Clean & Simple Cardmaking 3 class. Well, technically, I tried a few things that didn’t work out the way I’d planned. One of those “fails” is incorporated into today’s card, which is based on the one shared in class by Debby Hughes.

CAS3: Day NineI made a few changes with the way I created my card. Rather than stamp and color a butterfly, as Debby did, I die cut a butterfly (Memory Box Vivienne Butterfly) that I inlaid into the panel. I backed the front panel with a heat-embossed and watercolored panel using the Penny Black Sweetness stamp (that was a project from yesterday which didn’t go according to plan). The butterfly was also cut from watercolor paper onto which I had scribbled some Distress ink. The front panel was stamped with a sentiment from the Hero Arts “Enjoy Today” set. I adding embossing paste with a Simon Says Stamp stencil.

I made the white panel three times. The first time I added some spray drops, as Debby did, and I didn’t like the effect at all. The second time, I got embossing paste in places I didn’t want! Third time’s a charm I guess!

CAS 3: Day Five

Okay, confession time – this isn’t a single layer card! I decided that I’d “cheat” a bit today to get the technique, shown by Jennifer McGuire in today’s Clean & Simple Cardmaking 3 lesson, under my belt without all of the work.

DayFive

I cut the panel out of Distress Watercolor paper, heat embossed the sentiment (from the Hero Arts Fancy Basics set) and then applied Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks with a brush. As instructed, I ironed the sentiment to remove the embossing when the panel was dry. I added some stitching to the panel with Lil’ Inker dies to give it a more finished look. Unfortunately, because the watercolor paper is thicker than cardstock, you can really see the lines from the edge of the die. I’d have to redo my embossing sandwich in order to eliminate those lines. Live and Learn!

I applied the watercolor panel to a panel that was heat-embossed using the Hero Arts Five-Line background stamp. I wanted a little texture for that base panel.