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Enchanted Mushroom Villa card

By KariV on May 27, 2014 in Paper Crafting

So for Memorial Day I made a card. You’d think it would be patriotic or red, white, and blue…but instead it turned into this Enchanted Mushroom Villa. No relation to Memorial Day!!

That’s because I’m playing along with the Paper Smooches Designer Drafts Challenge. Here’s the challenge designer draft:

My first thoughts were to design a moon, or a gumball machine, or a pizza. (And maybe I still will!) But the first stamp that jumped right out at me was this adorable mushroom house from the Fanciful Fall Paper Smooches set. I turned the designer draft upside down and created an enchanted mushroom villa! Here’s my card:

Here’s a close up of some of that glitter on the bee and the ladybug (those are from the Spring Fling Paper Smooches set, and so are the four-leaf clovers)

I wish these pictures were a little better, because in real life this card makes me SMILE! I have it on my desk in my craft room right now and I just love it.
I used Inktense watercolor pencil for the coloring/painting. And a bit of Wink of Stella on that “hi” die (from My Favorite Things).

Hope you enjoy!

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Sweet Bear card

By KariV on May 22, 2014 in Paper Crafting

I’ve been playing around with watercolors this week. I just received a new Paper Smooches stamp set in the mail…and I had to watercolor that bear! This one is a grizzly bear and he has stolen some poor camper’s marshmallows.

I’ve found that I LOVE to watercolor with distress inks. The ink pads, that is, because I don’t own the distress markers *YET.* But, my birthday’s coming up and guess what’s on the wish list? 😉

This originally started as a single layer card, I stamped the bear and then covered him up with rubber cement. After that dried, I painted the watercolor background. Then, I peeled up the rubber cement. I wasn’t happy with the results (it was my first try, after all, and I got some ink all over that bear!)

So I decided he needed to be popped up on the card, along with those marshmallows. Now it looks like he has multiple sticks of sweet, toasted marshmallows! Perfect.

I love the look of that watercolor!

Joining up with paper smooches sparks challenge this week: anything goes! (And there goes the marshmallows…ha!)

This card went to my Dad, who loves bears and is celebrating some sweet victories this week. Congrats, Dad, you are just awesome!!

Have a sweet day!

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Watercoloring with Paper Smooches

By KariV on May 17, 2014 in Paper Crafting

Today I was inspired to make some watercolored stripes for a background to my card. I also used “no line” stamping to make all the images look softer and cleaner. Here’s the card:

That little squirrel just cracks me up! The scallops on the bottom of the card are actually a purple color, but they turned out really dark in these pictures.

I’m joining up with paper smooches challenge this week. Here’s the inspiration photo:

Seriously having too much fun watercoloring these cards this week. <3
I am sad to reach the LAST day of the Online Watercolor Class…I will keep on practicing these techniques, but I sure wish it would just go on for a few extra weeks! See you next time.

Supplies Used:
Distress Inks: Concord Grape, Mowed Lawn, Squeezed Lemonade, Orange Marmalade
Watercolor pencils: Derwent Inktense
Stamps: Paper Smooches
Other: Sequins

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Freehand Watercolored Cactus card

By KariV on May 17, 2014 in Paper Crafting

Homework from my online watercolor card class is to FREEHAND watercolor paint a card. Oh, boy! I normally would not choose this subject matter, but I have cactus on my mind because I’m thinking about a baby shower I’m helping with. And the theme is cactus. That should make for a very unique baby shower!

So, I started out freehand painting a prickly pear cactus with some bright pink flowers.

Yes, I think I need a little practice. But I certainly had fun with this one! I wanted to make the sky look like an Arizona sunset, but it really had a mind to be more stormy…surprise!

I’m going to keep working on this freehand watercoloring. I’m finding that I love working with not only watercolor paints, but also distress ink pads. Sometimes I throw in a bit of inktense watercolor pencils. And what I really love is the surprise of seeing how it all looks once it dries.

Well, cactus flowers…let’s give it another go. I’ll share more later!

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Faux watercoloring (daisy) card

By KariV on May 15, 2014 in Paper Crafting

Lucky for me, I learned a shortcut for watercoloring an image in the Online Card Class! You ink up a stamp with distress ink, then watercolor over it! Oh, I have to say that I love this technique because it looks like I painted it all by myself, but actually, I got a little help. 🙂

I love how the gerbera daisy turned out. I did a simple wash with broken china distress ink for the background. The daisy was painted with worn lipstick and fired brick distress ink.

I can’t wait to play with this technique some more!

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