Watercolor Background with Ink Smooshing

Hi Everybody,

I made a quick card yesterday with the intent of putting it into a challenge using 6 things on the card and then I realized I used the wrong company's stamps.  I really like how it turned out.  I think what I did to the background is called ink smooshing.  I saw it done a couple years ago in a Kristina Werner video and thought it was cool.  Kristina took a piece of acetate and dabbed it in her spritzed ink and then dabbed it on her watercolor paper where she wanted it to go.  I just let mine run wild :)

I wanted the background to have some yellow, green and light blue in it.  I really meant it to have more green and blue and just a touch of yellow but when you're working with watercolor, sometimes it doesn't work out exactly like you planned but that's the cool thing about watercolor.

You can either use a large acrylic block or your craft mat and put down different colors of distress inks however you want, put one color in a few places, the next color in a few places but don't let them touch when you put the colors down.  You can either spritz the inks and then put your watercolor paper down on it working the inks in or in my case, I put them on a block, laid the watercolor paper down on the inks and if I felt I needed a little more of a color I inked the block and put the paper down in the area I needed more color and then I spritzed the watercolor paper and just let it run down the paper however it wanted and when I got color all over, I used a heat gun to dry it.

I used Tim Holtz Twisted Citron, Fossilized Amber and Tumbled Glass ink colors.  I wanted there to be more Tumbled Glass but it didn't happen that way but I still think it turned out really pretty.

I used Altenew's Botanical Gardens stamp set and masked the flower to add the butterfly on top and then heat embossed the flower, butterfly and sentiment with Stampendous Fine Detail Gold Embossing Powder.

I took the plunge and added some little black paint droplets.  I think it added a little something something to it.  I used my Tim Holtz Splatter Tool finally to do this.  I finished it off with some gold sequins.  The sentiments on the front and inside are from Casual Friday Stamps, Pretty Posies.

So if you don't have a lot of time, don't have time to color, this is a great way to have a fun background and have your stamped images colored in as well.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Regina

Jennifer McGuire's Tulle Window Shaker Card for Mother's Day

Hi Everybody,

It's time to make Mother's Day cards and when I saw Jennifer McGuire's video on Tulle Shaker Cards, I knew I wanted to try it.  They are so fun to make.  You would think the tulle wouldn't be strong enough to hold the sequins but there is a double layer and it does.  Here's my card....  at first I thought I messed up by stamping the sentiment instead of embossing it but the more I looked at it, I think it wouldn't stand out as much if embossed in white, gold, etc.  There is a nice contrast between the kraft card stock and the beautiful colors of the flowers and sequins and in the sentiment.

This was my first attempt.  I really love the die that Jennifer McGuire used but I don't have that one and of course, it's sold out because everyone wanted it after watching her video, so I used something similar.  I love how you can see through the tulle to the inside of the card too.

Supply List:

• Gina K Designs Kraft Card Stock, the lighter color is from Close To My Heart, not sure of the name
• Altenew Botanical Garden Stamp Set (flowers), some of the leaves are from Casual Friday Stamps, Pretty Posies
• Inside Sentiment, Heartfelt Expressions Stamp Set by Heartfelt Creations
• Front Sentiment by I Brake For Stamps
• Memento Expresso Truffle Ink
• Spellbinders Big Scallop Circles Large ( I used the 3rd one down from the largest)
• White Tulle (it doesn't matter where you buy it, mine is cheap from Joann's)
• Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral, and Fossilized Amber
• WOW White Embossing Powder
• Pearlized Spritz made with Perfect Pearls and Water
• Scor-Tape 1/4"
• Sequins, Kat Scappiness White Butterfly Confetti, Spring Heart Confetti, 6mm and 8mm Clear Hearts and I used a pack of yellow and pink ones from Virginia Turtle

I would explain how to make this but Jennifer's link is above and she of course, can do it much better than I can.

I'm going to play around with recording videos and starting a YouTube channel if I can pull it off without sounding ridiculous so I will let you know if this happens.  I love to do tutorials on my blog and post step by step pictures but it's much easier to show you so I hope I can do videos in the near future.  Videos are much more fun to watch anyway!

I hope I inspired you to make a tulle window card.  It's really not hard.  

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a great day!

Regina