Watercolor Cards

I've been wanting to learn how to water colour for the longest time.  I love the soft look it presents, especially with flowers.  I decided to take a couple of classes at my LSS (local scrapbooking store.)  First we explored watercolours by using basic cardstock backgrounds but doing some water colouring on stamped items.  For the stamps we used Tim Holtz Crazy Birds which were a lot of fun.  We used Ken Oliver's Color Bursts for our water color pigment.  Here are the cards that we made during those two classes.  I love the way they turned out and I will be adding both the Color Bursts and Tim Holtz stamps to my wish list so that I can experiment some more on my own.  Enjoy! (Oh and yes I realize that it's almost April and I have a Valentine's card in the bunch but that's what the store was offering.)  As always, your feedback is appreciated;  please leave a comment letting me know whether you enjoyed these or even if you didn't.  :) 

 

Paper Hoarding Queen!

Are you like me?  Do you have boxes and boxes of scrap pieces of paper that you just can't bear to get rid of because you just know that you can do SOMETHING with them, no matter how small?  I am very serious when I say that I probably have a full Rubbermaid large tub full of scraps!   I decided to try and attack my pile and see what I could do with it.  I was having a couple of days where I just couldn't seem to get myself in gear.  No creativity.  Zip.  Gone.  What I usually do when that happens is I clean up my crafting area(s).  LOL  It's all over the house!  I clean up, I purge and I discover old papers that I'd forgotten about.  That helps to get the juices going again.  Anyway, the other  day I was going through my scrap piles and seeing all of these tiny bits that really didn't look like they were good for much of anything.  I had pieces of paper that I had used as edging, trimmed it down to fit the card and then kept the bits that I cut off!  LOL  Little itty bitty pieces that were maybe an inch long! 

I mean seriously!  Throw it out.  But I just couldn't.  The scraps weren't even the worst of it.  You know when you die cut stuff and you end up with those little bits of paper? 

Yeah those!  I had a whole pile of them in the scrap box and was just about to throw them out when I thought of something.  Easter is coming and I've been wanting to make some cards but just didn't feel like stamping or hunting for Easter paper.  I'll be honest, my craft room right now is in shambles and I can't seem to get my act together.  I'm trying to fit 10 gallons of craft supplies into a 1 gallon container!

Eureka!  I've got it.  I spend a couple of days just vegging in front of the tv and gluing and cutting bits and pieces together.  I brought out my small punches and just sat and punched, punched and punched.  Here's what I made from those scraps and die cut bits and pieces. 

These were truly a lot of fun to make up.  I loved trying to see how many different patterns I could come up with on the eggs and how many flowers I could do that were unique.  I think I will keep doing this my stash of scraps and have a ready stash of ready to go flowers. Feel free to use up your stash and share on here!   I'd love to see them. 
 

Announcement; Scrap N' Dipity

I am so happy to share that I have been asked to join the Design Team of Scrap N' Dipity!  There are so many adorable images that the only problem I have with the website is choosing which one to use! 
Our oldest son has moved back home for a short time and with him came his cat Betty.  We also had a cat named Mr. Kitty so it has been quite the job, full time I might add, to get these 2 beautiful creatures used to each other.  So for this reason I thought it was fitting to start my first Design Team Post with the image of the adorable cat! 
I was also trying to decide which medium I wanted to use and thought that since I'm new on the DT I should also try something new.  I had purchased some chalks some time ago and hadn't used them yet at all.  I went through 3 of the images before I settled on one that I thought did the kitty justice. 
With my failing memory I thought it would be a good idea to make up a notepad for myself where I could keep track of the different projects that I'm working on and when they are due.  I used a simple composition notebook and covered it with cardstock.  I also made a little pocket on the inside front cover in case I wanted to slip something in so I wouldn't have to go hunting for it.  I then used DCWV's The Tradewinds matstack to pretty up the front.  I made up some flowers using some of my hand punches with different shapes.  The leaves were also hand punched out of cardstock and The Tradewinds matstack again.  I used my Martha Stewart punch to get the letters for the front cover. 
This project came together very quickly and was so much fun to play around with the image.  I am looking forward to making many more adorable projects using the images over at Scrap N' Dipity.   Click here for Scrap N' Dipity website. Do yourself a favour and check the wonderful images that Alisha has to offer.  I bet you can't settle on just one!  Here is my project!  I hope you like it and as always, your comments are welcome!