Water Coloured Background Cards

Well this was an interesting day. First thing this morning my weirdly wired brain decided to add a dozen or twenty syllables to the end of every other word….which puts me in the “no-drive zone” condition and today was quilt making over at the church. Grrrrrrr! However, by about 10:00 it switched to a southern drawl. So odd. We decided it would be best to wait until after lunch to see how I was before I headed out to the church. So, instead of quilting I headed down to the lower studio and did some experimenting with water colour backgrounds for cards…..posted below. Well, the drawl didn’t want to go away but the no-drive condition didn’t come back so off I went. Well, the ladies I quilt with thought my speech was a riot and they loved it and renamed me “Savannah” for the day because they said I sounded like I came from Georgia. So nice to have friends that laugh right along with me instead of being uncomfortable around me! I didn’t sew but I was the presser and all around gopher for the afternoon and I was the only one there doing that today so I was glad I went.

After supper I went back to the studio and finished off the cards. They are okay, not great, but okay. I’ll share with you my failures and successes.

 

First problem – use good quality water colour paper….which I did not have on hand. I do believe these would all be much better if they were on a better grade of water colour paper. So, to make the backgrounds….I used the same method for all three cards….. I wet the paper and added several colours of water colour paint, dried them, and repeated, over and over until I liked it. Then I sprayed white paint, watered down, over the top using an old toothbrush and my thumb. This gave a very soft spray to look like snow in the distance. I cut them down to the size I wanted and ran a silver pen along the edge using a steel ruler as a guide. I rummaged through my stash…..of yeah, read to the end to hear my stash story…and found this beautiful blue paper that had some dark spots already printed on and then I found the purple. Love this combination of colours and they both are in the background so I figured it would work.

First card is square…sorry it slipped down when I took the picture and I didn’t notice it until I had put the camera away. Once it was dry I stamped the tree in Archival black ink and the Noel....which was an outline stamp. So I drew the inside of the Noel with the same silver pen and then outlined it with a black gloss pen. The snowflake on the left of the tree was part of the stamp but I didn’t want to leave it black so I added a large gem in the centre and then smaller ones on the outside.  Walnut ink was sponged along the edges once the cards were done. Because the area behind the main focal image covers up the background papers, I die cut them with a Spellbinder die and used them in the inside…like this.

The next card was okay too......

....but I didn’t like the bottom part so I cut it off and redrew the silver line. There was a piece of dark purple left over so I die cut the banner with it and a piece of white cardstock. I cut the white middle piece off and then trimmed about 1/16” of an inch around the top and bottom. Then I sponged Distress Ink Concord Purple around the edge and used a stencil brush to pounce on a thin pouncing of the same ink to the inside….I like this better then sponged solid in the middle. Then the sentiment was stamped and all attached to each other and then to the card. Same procedure for the inside but I had a strip of blue left over so I added that behind the label…like this.

For the last card.....

...... I stamped one large tree and then realized that the inside is left blank. Note to self….when you stamp an image you have either never stamped before or haven’t stamped for a long time, stamp it on scratch paper first! Well, I didn’t like that at all so I grabbed my Stampin’ Up Hunter Green ink pad, squeezed some ink onto the lid and used a paint brush to paint the inside of the tree. Its okay, not great, but passable. The sentiment was stamped right onto the card this time. This card was smaller and I couldn’t fit the largest die on the purple without cutting into where the stamped image was going to go and I wanted to use that large verse for the inside so I had to improvise once again. These cards took hours to make by the way!

 So, I die cut two of the smaller dies in that same set; cut them apart and then glued the edges behind the large label with the sentiment. I think that worked out okay.

Once the cards were done I decided to add some large snow flakes by flipping on more paint and some by using the end of a stylus. I’m calling them done now!

Okay a quick story about the stash. On the way home from quilting I stopped in at the thrift store. Someone had obviously given up scrapbooking because they had two huge bags of 12x12 paper packs, plus a stack of Creative Memories paper, plus other paper for only $3.99 each. I told myself, “You don’t need this self” but self didn’t listen and I’m kind of glad. When I got home and sorted it out – gorgeous paper!!!!

So that’s the end of a very long post for a Monday. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada. Please take time at 11:00 a.m. for a moment of silence for the fallen soldiers. We’ll be at the cenotaph as usual on November 11^th.

Cheers

Violet