Category: Watercoloring

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.

Penny Black: Live for Today

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.

Penny Black Happy Birthday

The Penny Black Birthday Party [#30-232] stamp set includes adorable images, suitable for birthday card recipients of any age! I watercolored one of the images with watercolor pencils for a special someone’s birthday card.

HappyBirthdayI adhered the watercolored panel, with I cut with a rectangle die, to a card base stamped and heat embossed with the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Sentimental [#30-176] set.

And off into the mail it goes!

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:

Penny Black Spring Celebration!

Happy Spring for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere! Today, I’m sharing a spring-themed card inspired by a card design of Heather Telford’s.

FloralWatercolor

To begin, I stamped the Penny Black Sweetness [#40-208] background stamp on watercolor paper with Versamark ink and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. I applied several Distress Ink colors to the floral area. Any ink that went on to the embossed area was easily wiped away. After the panel dried, I ironed off the embossing. I cut the panel into squares, arranging them on a card base. I applied white embossing paste through a one-time stencil I created with one of the dragonflies in the Flutters [#51-006] die cut set. I finished the card with a sentiment stamped in gold ink from the Special Wishes [#30-229] set. I tried a couple of other color inks, including green and cocoa brown, before choosing the gold ink for the sentiment. I wanted something soft and elegant.

Did you know that Penny Black offers a free membership for all of their fans?  Simply join the Penny Black club by clicking HERE so you can get a first peek at new releases, blogging events, new card and scrapbooking ideas, and receive card ideas with step-by-step instructions.

I’m delighted to be sharing cards in an upcoming “Three Steps” feature to club members.

three steps