The roaming gnome gets some clothes!

Hello, after sitting on the table for a week, it was time for my wee gnome friend (from My Favorite Things You Gnome Me) to get some clothes. 

All of the colouring was done with Peerless watercolours... I love how vibrant the colours are and how nicely they blend on watercolour paper.  I started off using Scarlet Lake for his hats and buttons.  His boots were coloured with Pearl Gray.

Next I used Deep Blue for his pants and braces.

His shirt was a blend of Dark Green and Grass Green and I love how vibrant it turned out!

Once all the gnomes were coloured I felt that they needed a bit more of a base to stand on so I watercoloured the bottom edge with Evergreen Bough and Weathered Wood Distress inks.

That turned out a little brighter than I wanted so I added some Pumice Stone Distress ink over the top to give the base a bit more depth.

By now I had five card fronts that I was pretty happy with but I knew they needed a bit of 'finishing off'.

Of course they needed a sentiment and luckily for me the courier delivered a wonderful parcel of Unity stamps during the week and there was a little sentiment stamp in the packet that was perfect for this little guy.

I also decided to use a little bit of washi tape along the top of the cards and I love how it turned out.  While I was adding the washi, I backed my card fronts with some black cardstock.

The final step was to add a little rhinestone to the center of each flower on the sentiment.  I went with red, blue and green rhinestones since that was the colours of the gnome clothes and here are my finished cards (remember to click on the photos to see a close up view):

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today xx
    

Be awesome... Be yourself

Hi there :)  I've got some more cards to share today.  After I made my card yesterday I uploaded it to the Unity Stamp Facebook group and I had some lovely comments.  I also had someone ask 'how' I'd done the background so I thought I'd make some more cards and take all the necessary photos so here you go!

Today's cards are slightly different than the one I made yesterday... and I made the background using Distress Ink instead of Peerless watercolours but the process was largely the same.

I started off by die cutting four pieces of Distress watercolour paper using my Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle dies.  Once they were all ready, I took each one in turn and used Micropore tape to hold it flat on an old mini clipboard (I bought the Micropore tape at a local chemist for $2).

After trialing lots of different tapes I've found that the Micropore tape is the best for temporarily holding my watercolour paper onto the board... and it NEVER tears my paper!

Then I use a wide paint brush and applied clean water to the Distress watercolour paper... this helps the inks move around much more than if you apply them direct to dry paper.

Next comes the fun stuff... COLOUR!  I wanted to start with a blue background so I chose three Distress Inks: Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers.  I just dabbed some of each colour onto a plastic place mat that I keep on my art table.

Then I used a soft, wet brush to pick up some of the colour and added it to my Distress watercolour paper.  I did some of each colour and let the colours flow into each other and react with the water.

Next I dried my paper with the heat gun... it's super fun to watch the colours change and mix as they dry.

I really love how you get darks, lights, and patterns over the background.  I wasn't finished yet though because I went back in with some more of each colour to create a bit more depth.  I also decided to add some splatter effects by just adding lots of water and a bit of colour to my paintbrush and then tapping it over my background.  It looked awesome when it dried!

When I was totally happy with my background I peeled off the Micropore tape and my background was ready.

Here's my blue background using Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks:

I decided to make each card 'the same but different' so here's my orange background using Wild Honey, Carved Pumpkin and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink:

The pink background using Shaded Lilac, Picked Raspberry and Abandoned Coral Distress Ink:

And finally the green background using Cracked Pistachio, Mowed Lawn and Lucky Clover Distress Ink:

I love colour, so seeing my backgrounds all come together was pretty fun for me!  You can get very similar effects using Peerless watercolours, paints and lots of other mediums... the key thing I've found is that you MUST wet your paper BEFORE you start adding your colour so that it can move and blend right from the start.  Here's my completed backgrounds:

My next step was to start stamping... and I'm SOOOO pleased that I have a MISTI stamping tool because I had to stamp my 'Live Love Laugh girl' five times on each card to get the area perfect... I think it might have been because I was using watercolour paper and I wanted a really solid black for the image.  In the end I found my Tsukineko Archival Brilliance ink (Graphite Black) gave me the very best results... and my Simple Green stamp cleaning solution cleaned the stamp up perfectly when I was done!

I stamped the same girl on all four cards and then heat embossed her with clear embossing powder.  She looks quite funky against the coloured backgrounds too!

I wanted the finished cards to be a set but also be user friendly for a variety of different situations so I grabbed my Simon Says Stamp 'Be' set and got to work.  I stamped all the sentiments using Hero Arts Hero Hues Black ink... this ink is quickly becoming a favourite with me!

I used my MISTI stamping tool so I knew my stamp was going to be perfectly placed for all the cards... takes all the worry away that's for sure!

Next I stamped 'amazing' so that it read "be amazing"

And then I had another idea... or maybe that should be an 'expanded' idea because I came up with this:

Now the cards can be used for any occasion... and with a variety of colours to choose from it's even better!

Since these cards are designed to be a set I decided to back them with Bazzill's Beetle Black cardstock.  In spite of the name I actually find it to be a really soft black... more of a charcoal... which is exactly what I wanted for these cards.

Then I layered them onto some white cards from my stash:

I probably could have called them finished at this point... but I wanted to add a little bling in the form of sequins!  These are Simon Says Stamp Moonshine sequins which come in a pack of 3mm, 6mm and 10mm sequins all in one pack.

Here are my finished cards:

And here they are all together... loving the colours!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today xx

Finally... something creative to share!

Hi there :)  It's been so long since I've made something creative... in part I've been busy with all the regular day to day things... and in part it's the weather... with winter well on it's way it's just a little bit more challenging to leave the house and head out to my art studio... (there's no internal access from the house).

Yesterday, I was catching up on some of my favourite bloggers and I noticed that Amy had done a video about her latest purchases from Unity Stamps.  She also mentioned that they were having a big sale so I headed on over for a 'look'... and before I knew it I had placed an order!!  I'm really looking forward to getting my new stamps.

After all the browsing around the Unity Stamps website I suddenly thought about a stamp I'd had in my stash for a while.  It's one I bought several years ago because I used it to make my swap pins for a retreat in 2011.  I hunted out the stamp and the swap pin but I'd long since ditched the packaging... darn it!

The next step was to do a bit of searching using Google and I came across a photo of some stamps and one of the stamps looked a lot like the stamp on my swap pin:

I was still no closer to naming the stamp but had a fairly good idea that it was in fact a Unity Stamp so I emailed them to explain what I was after and sent them the photos.

I was hoping that I might hear back from them in a few days but they literally got back to me within hours and confirmed that my funky girl was definitely one of their products.

It is called "Live, Laugh, Love GIRL" and here is a link to her (she's still available!):

https://www.unitystampco.com/shop/live-laugh-love-girl-itty-bitty/

Anyway, after Andrea's lovely email I started to have a few ideas about how I could use my Live, Laugh, Love girl to create a funky card.  The one thing I didn't do was take 'in progress' photos... oops!

The background was created on a die cut piece of Distress watercolour paper with Peerless watercolours.  Then I stamped my image using black ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  Next up was the sentiment which was a Simon Says Stamp set called 'Be'.   After all that I just added some clear sequins to create a more 'dreamy' quality to go with the sentiment.

Here's my completed card:

Thanks so much for visiting xx

p.s. the Unity Stamp sale is on until the end of May!