OCC Watercolor Day Four

Today’s  lesson in the Online Card Classes Watercolor for Card Makers class included a card by Shari Carroll in which she stamped with an image inked with Distress markers. Looking through my stamps, it seems that I don’t have that many that work for this technique, and naturally, I’m already starting a list of some to purchase!

For my card, I inked the Penny Black Iris stamp (it’s rubber and wood-mounted) with Chipped Sapphire, Broken China, Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink markers and stamped onto Ranger watercolor paper, smooth-side.

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I finished the card with a sentiment from the Penny Black Special Wishes [#30-229], stamped with Archival ink on Ranger watercolor paper and die cut with a MFT tag die.

There are definitely some things that I could have done to “step up” the design, such as cut the dark blue strip with a border punch and/or dry-emboss the background. Short on time, I kept this one simple! Of course, I wasn’t so busy that I didn’t think about how I’d like for there to be a set of Distress ink cardstock. I spend entirely too much time worrying about matching cardstock and inks!

 

OCC Watercolor Day 3

I’m sharing a card created with the technique shown by Jennifer Rzasa in today’s Online Card Classes Watercolor for Card Makers lesson. The idea is to ink your stamp and mist with water before stamping for a watercolor effect.

DayThreeStamping

I worked on this for most of the morning (read, tore my hair out) trying Memento dye ink pads, as she suggested, and finally switching to Distress Ink pads. I walked away from this more than once when I wasn’t getting the results I wanted! I had the best results stamping onto the Ranger Watercolor paper. I tried Neenah Solar White but the ink looked blah on it.

I die cut the sentiment four times, the last time in watercolor paper I colored with the Worn Lipstick Distress Ink pad to match to the flowers.

Supplies:

Penny Black Patterned Paper Sunflower

In addition to the watercoloring I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been crafting with my patterned paper collection. Today, I’m sharing a card created with the Penny Black  Sunny Hello [#30-230] stamp set and the Leaves [#51-002] die set using patterned paper.

SunFlowerPPCardI stamped and heat-embossed the sunflower on patterned paper and then fussy cut it. I also stamped and heat-embossed the “Sunshiny HELLO” sentiment (I can see myself reaching for this sentiment time and again!). I cut the leaf die several times and cut some of the stems and leaves off in order to arrange them to my liking under the sunflower. The sunflower is attached to the card panel with dimensional adhesive.

Hope there’s sun shining in your part of the world today!

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.

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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.

Cards for Him

I’m sharing a few more cards from Catherine Pooler’s online class Cards for Him. The first two are variations of a card Catherine showed in a lesson on Nautical-themed cards. I used a border from WPlus9’s Dockside set with sentiments from the WPlus9 Super Star set. For the first card, I stamped “Dad” with Ranger green ink and on the second one I stamped it with VersaMagic navy ink.

DadCardGreenDadCardNavyThe next card, also by Catherine, is a variation of one in the Graphics and Grunge section of the class.Celebrate

I really like this card design and see myself using it again and again.

The top and bottom panels are stamped with white ink on navy cardstock with a border from Avery Elle. I used a different Avery Elle set for the sentiment, stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with silver embossing powder. I added a couple of die cut stars for embellishment. This would be a fun graduation or birthday card. Navy and silver just happen to be my eldest son’s college colors.

I had quite the “a ha” with these card design, realizing the huge potential with border stamps and strong sentiments!