1. Colouring Wonderful Romance - Colouring with Inks.

I have said many times that I love to colour. The floral bouquet stamp from Wonderful Romance stamp set is perfect for this. So over my next few posts I am going to share the colouring of this image using inks and water colour pencils  with an aqua painter or blender pen,  and blenders (alcohol markers).
I must say that I am most comfortable colouring with my water colour pencils. I am improving with my blenders. I have used these less than water colour pencils and I am still working out the intricacies of these markers. Really my biggest problem is with 'bleeding' past the lines. I tend to over saturate the paper with ink when blending the ink shades.  I just need to practise more. Lastly, I am out of my comfort zone when water colouring with inks. I think mainly as  I am impatient and like to have more control over the medium used. I am also self taught so I do make lots of errors.
So I will be brave and share my cards that I did with inks. Firstly, I did stamp out a few images onto watercolour paper with Versa Mark ink and embossed, one with silver, one with gold and one with copper. I taped each down to a board with blue painters tape to avoid warping. Embossing helps make water colouring easier as the water stays inside the lines and stops unwanted mixing of colours. This is particularly good for impatient people. I spritz the paper first before adding any colour.  I prefer to use my markers to scribble ink onto a stamp block.  Have some hand paper towel on hand to clean off the aqua painter or for moping  up excess water from the brush. Also, very handy to mop up errors. One tip with choosing colours is be aware that mixing water with ink dilutes the strength of the colour, so either pick a stronge colour or be prepared to dry off between repeated application of ink. The same applies with adding a different colour. My best advice is to have a go! It won't be perfect but treat each time as a learning session.


Water colouring is 'magic' - but that usually appears a day or two later, well for me anyway!  I am never really happy with what I do straight after colouring but I find if I leave it to dry naturally, it always looks better to me a day or two later. Sometimes I leave it as it is, and sometimes I play around with it.
Well here's my three cards completed using inks and an aqua painter.

This is my favourite from the three cards.  And yes!, 'happy' was stacked. That's the other fad I am going through. Cutting out multiple dies, glueing and stacking for dimension. The die came from Well Written Framelits Dies. The paper comes from Gingham Gala 6x6" DSP and the ribbon is a freebie from SAB.












Here's a closer look at the other two cards.

Seven Cards. from one sheet of the Botanical Butterfly DSP

During one hot day recently, when it is only good to sit in a cooled room I decided to do some colouring.  I pulled out one sheet from the Botanical Butterfly DSP which is made to add colour and cut it into 6 pieces measuring 4x6".  Doing so makes each piece more manageable and easier to use.  You have lots of small projects rather than one large piece which can be a bit daunting.  Saying that, I still had some hits and misses with my mini projects.  I had six pieces or 6 projects and I ended up with 7 cards. How can that be? The photo below might be a bit of a give away.
I ended up using both my Blends and Water Colouring Pencils but not on the same piece.
Here they are  from left to right-

1. Birthday Wishes Card.
I used my Blends on this piece. It turned out lovely, but I had a little trouble working out how to include a sentiment.
Finally, settled on a band of Vellum paper with a very narrow strip of silver glitter paper. The vellum mutes the background.  'Birthday' came from the Well Written Framelits. 'Wishes' was embossed onto the vellum with White embossing powder. It came from an old  stamp set Build a Birthday.

2. Blue and Purple Spotlight Butterflies Happy Birthday
I coloured the butterflies only, with my watercolour pencils.
The check panel is also from the same dsp pack and the Highland Heather Organdy Ribbon is another freebie from Sale-A-Bration. The ribbon was one of 5 in the Combo Pack. 

3. You Make Me Smile Card
This card was not coloured in the first photo.  I was going to make some black and white cards but decided against it. This card was coloured in a similiar fashion to the previous card, except I used  different colours with the green butterfly.
The sentiment stamp and thinlit come from the Well Said Bundle. 













4 &5. Two For One Card
I started colouring this piece with blenders and decided I didn't like how it was going, so I sliced it on the diagonal, changed the colour combination and finished the card on the left using the spotlight technique - colouring the butterflies only.
I went back to the small section and tried a combination of colours that were 'pale' or mute. I wanted the butterflies to stand out but I didn't want the background to overpower or become too busy. I think it worked with light blenders  - Smoky Slate -background, Crub Cake - daisy centre's, Highland Heather - Lavendar.

6. Bermuda Bay Butterfly
This one butterfly is all that survived from this section of dsp. I didn't like the Mango Melody flower that I coloured in, so after colouring the butterfly in shades of Bermuda Bay and  Pool Party, I fussy cut them out.
I rummaged through a box of leftovers from other projects and found this brayered background.  I think the colour comination was  Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cobana and Soft Sea Foam.  Added the black and check dsp (also from the same pack as the butterfly paper) and put it with a layer of white, then adhered it to a black card base. For a bit of bling I added a piece of silver sequin ribbon.
The 'happy birthday' sentiment stamp came from Happy Birthday Gorgeous.

7. Black and White Card
This card was so quick to make. No colouring and the sentiment from Well Said Bundle was the only stamping.  A little silver doily was adhered behind the oval sentiment and adhered with glure dots to the Silver Glimmer Paper. Looking at it now I think I could have added Some Rhinestones.

Brayered Background with a Splatter Technique

Yes the die has been stacked! I did say in my previous post that I was into stacking dies but these two cards also use the splattered background technique.   The backgrounds were brayered using the same colour combination of Soft Sea Foam, Pool Party and Coastal Cobanna onto some Shimmery White cardstock.
The card on the right was splattered with water by holding a water filled brush which was tapped  to cause the splatter. The card on the left was splattered with a mixture of water with Gold Shimmer Paint.

Springtime Impressions Stacked Die Cards

I am into stacking dies! Love how the added thickness of the die gives extra depth. I love this thinlit from the Springtimes Impressions Thinlits, especially stacking it!                                            The background to the stacked die was brayered using So Saffron and Coral Calypso. The inks were blended in the middle of the diagonal application. It was also layered onto a So Saffron layer which had been to Silver Foiled card base.                                   'Happy Birthday' from Happy Gorgeous Stamp Set

 was silver embossed onto an oval shape cut using Stitched Shapes Framelits.  To finish, a piece of Calypso Coral Satin Ribbon and Silver thread was adhered below the oval sentiment.

Two Techniques using Well Written Framelits Dies

My card class asked for techniques and this card uses three. The first technique used ink smooching to make the background, the other two techniques involved using the framelits from the new Well Written Framelits Dies. The sentiments for each card were inset while the remaining dies were stacked.

Lovely Lattice

I have two cards to share today, both were coloured using watercolour pencils on Shimmery White cardstock. I fussy cut the bottom half of the first card and the whole of the second.
The card base on the first card uses Grapefruit Grove cardstock and finished with a cut down piece from the In Colour 6x6" DSP stack, a band and bow using Grosgrain ribbon and some sequins from the Iridescent Sequin Assortment. I also coloured the large rose from another stamped image, coloured it to match, fussy cut it out and adhered with dimensionals for some extra depth.
The second card was raised with dimensionals and adhered to a Sea Foam card base which had a layer of dsp from the Subtles 6x6" pack.  I also cut multiple of 'thanks' from the Well Written Framelits Dies. These were stacked and glued for added dimension.  Also, some rhinestones were added to the roses centres for a little bling!

Happy Sale-A-Bration,

This is a great time of year because it is Sale-A-Bration time! I put my order in and got to select free product. Yeah! If you are unsure what this means, I will quickly explain- for every $90 spent from the new Occasions or Annual Catalogues you get to choose free product from the Sale-A-Bration brochure.
To check out the catalogues or to shop click on either the New Occasions or Sale-Bration Brochure pictures on the right.
Here’s what I scored for free after I put my order in!
I got  the Organdy Ribbon Combo Pack (5 spools), Botanical Butterfly DSP and Lovely Lattice stamp set.
Don’t forget to check back to see what I have made with my new collection.