Watercolor- part 2

Before we get back to the water color pages I thought I would show you the cover of the little journal I decided to make.  I still haven't decided what to put on the tabs but that will come in time.  I stuck with a nature inspired theme for the cover and added about 12 cardstock pages in between the tabbed pages I made a couple days ago.

I cut 2 pieces of book board 4 3/4 x 6".  

Covered them with patterned paper - the ledger paper is from 7gypises.

I rounded the corners of the book board and punched the holes with the Binderie Punch.

I added a piece of vintage music paper across the front with Matte Medium.  Then waited a few minutes for it to dry, then covered the entire surface with the same medium.

Once dry, I took some Claudine Hellmuth Sky Blue paint and painted the outside edge (think quick and random here).  I know it looks garish but we will fix that in a minute.

Take a baby wipe and wipe away what you don't want (still very random).  Because I sealed the surface with the Matte Medium I can manipulate the paint until I like the way it looks.  It will only take a few minutes to dry so work quickly.

Once dry, add some Vintage Photo Distress Ink with a blending tool (that's more like it, right?)

To complete the cover turn the 7gypsies ledger paper over and cut out the bird, the red floral block and the text in the blue box from the back side of the paper.
The stick came from my neighbors tree and is wrapped with a little cheese cloth and held in place with Golden Gel Medium.
I cut "her tender heart" from an old book and stamped the number 26 with the new 7gypsies Numero stamp and black Archival ink.

Inside the book-
I used the same watercolor method shown in the last post.  This time using Weathered Wood and Wild Honey (loving these two colors together).

Here is the finished tabbed page.  All the stamps are from the new 7gypsies Conservatory stamp.  If I would have had a plan to start with, I would have positioned the butterfly over a bit so that when I punched the page it would not have gone into the sewed circle.  But I didn't, so it does and I'm okay with that.  This in fact turned out to be my favorite one.

The third tabbed page was done with Spun Sugar and Peeled Paint.

Once dry I added the 3 butterflies from this paper, some Tissue Tape-Sketchbook and some stitching.

As I mentioned before in between the tabbed pages I cut about 12 sheets of paper and rounded the corners.  I stamped each page with the Numero stamp to finish it out.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little watercolor adventure.  I love the way you can mix two or even three colors and get such a cool effect with very little effort.  I think this one will be appearing in a class project sometime soon.
cheers!
paula

Watercoloring

Well, we are officially back in the rat race after a relaxing week of vacation.  Everyone is back at school today, the suitcases unpacked and the laundry complete.  Sooooo much to get ready before I leave again on Wed morning for Phoenix, Tucson and St Louis.  My friend suggested packing a bicycle helmet for St Louis since it's tornado season and us Californians don't really have any tornado training.  I assured her I was going to be with my sister that has lived in Texas for 25+ years and she has plenty of tornado training so I should be fine as long as the airport stays open this next week.

I thought I could get in one more project before I go so that is what we are starting today.  First of all I found some great flower pictures on Deviant Art.  You can download them for free (which is great). You will need a least a few flower pictures for this project or some of your own ephemera.

1.  Download the file from Mellowmint.
2.  Open the file and choose the pictures you want to print.
3.  Open Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to size...if you don't have either of these programs, just open a Word Document.  Drag photos into the Word doc.  You can size it and even add text using a text box if you like (see below).
4.  Now print...it's that easy.

 

Super easy to do... for those of you that might be shy about trying to print your own ephemera, try a few of these.  

Okay, so back to the project at hand.

                       

To be quite honest I am still not really sure what I am making yet, but this is how I started...For the foundation I am using the 7gypsies Naked Tabs (6 x 4"), much bigger than the little tabs I used in the last project.  These large tabs are made for the 7gypsies Library Drawer but of course I am going to use them for something else.  I guess I should say that the Library Drawer comes with some index tabs but they are printed with lines and the months.  These naked tabs are sold separately ($5.95 for 24), are not printed and heavier weight (which is why I like them).

You will need the tabs, a mini mister and some distress stain.

 Cover the entire surface with Spun Sugar.  You can lightly blot to give it a mottled effect.  Dry with a heat gun.

 Working quickly add some streaks of Broken China then spritz with the mini mister.  Don't worry when the paper starts to curl.  Just let the stain bleed, creating a watercolor effect. NOTE:  You can spray the water before you add the stain...I just like the effect of spraying after for this project.

 You can stand the card on end to let the stain run.  If you get to much at the bottom just blot with a paper towel.  Once you like what you see, dry the card with heat gun to stop the bleeding (and the card will go back to being flat again).

 Now add a bit of Antique Linen Stain.  

Again, spray with Mini mister, let bleed then dry with heat gun.

 Here is the finished watercolored card.  I love the fact that every time you do this it will be totally different and unique depending on the colors used, the amount of water, and honestly how fast you are.  The tabbed cards hold up well to repeated spraying and drying and still retain a great work surface for stamping.  I did a have one card I got overzealous with and the pulp started balling up, but I just dried the card and then flicked away the pieces with my fingernail. 

I grabbed a script stamp and inked it with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink, but before I stamped the card I used a baby wipe to wipe away a few of the edges and a bit of the center so there would be no straight edge to the image. Gosh, that sounds much more confusing that it really is.

 You might be able to see it here better than I can explain it.  You can see there are portions of the image missing where I wiped away the ink.  Super simple technique.

 Cut out the printed flower.

  I added a stamped image from the new 7gypsies Conservatory stamp (sorry I don't have a better picture of it) that just came in last week, a bit of dyed cheesecloth and Lille paper tape (stamps).

Well, I feel like it's 90 percent complete...I ended up spraying it with a bit of Perfect Pearls Mists - Heirloom Gold that you might be able to see in the finished card.  I may add some stitching and I still need to add a word to the tab but that will come when I finish the rest and have an idea of what I want to do with the cards. I guess you will have to stick with me while I go on this little watercolor journey.

because there are more to come...

So back to the table for more fun using the Distress Stains as watercolors...on second thought, maybe I should pack first.

cheers,

paula

Ta Da!

This weekend is my niece's birthday.  She is leaving on trip tomorrow so I thought a gift card would be fun so she could have some extra spending money to get something while she is gone.  Needed a card but forgot to buy one. 

What to do?
Here is my answer...

Dig through sticker drawer to find this old favorite from 7gypsies.  It had all the right words!

 Gather some fun ink colors,

 and a couple great new stamps.  This one from House of 3.

 and this new one from 7gypises (loving this stamp).  Numero should be at your local scrapbook store in the next week or so, or you can pre-order it here.

I had some of the new 7gypsies Naked tabs (made for the Mini Drawer) 

and thought they would make a fun little card/book.  

I decided to just stamp and doodle on the tabbed cards (super thick so they make a good background).  I sewed just a little bit on each card and left the thread long.   I just thought it looked more festive.  

When I was through making the cards, I used the small hole on my Crop a dile to make a hole in the top left corner (I punched them all at once), then added a small ring and some of my hand dyed ribbon along with the orange May arts ribbon that I just can't seem to get enough of.  All the stickers came from the same "W is for Wow" sticker I mentioned at the beginning.  I did use a few other stamps and I have noted them above each picture.

I embossed the cupcake to make it nice a shiny.

The teeny tiny numbers are from the 7gypsies set.

Circle stamp - Paper Source

This one is my favorite...

Wood grain stamp - All Night Media (Michaels)

Wheel of numbers - Invoke Arts

Journaling lines - Catslife Press

I ended with a bright orange envelope for the gift card.

So, nothing really ground breaking here, just some old fashion stamping fun.  Again, I didn't go back to the store when I forgot the card...I just used what I had to create something better.

Easter break started today and I have one happy husband (he teaches High School).  

That means VACATION starts today! and we LOVE vacation time!

cheers!

paula

Weekend in the Rockies

We are back from visiting our friends from The Scrap Yard in the Great White North!  The scrap event was held at Nokoda Guest Lodge about an 1 1/2 outside of Calgary, Canada.  Lori put on a great event for her customers.  The food was terrific, lots of prizes (even an iPad2 was given away!), and she had every machine in "scrapbooking world" there for the ladies to use plus tons of cartridges.  What a set up.

Deb took just a few pictures walking over to the classroom one morning.  Even though there was so much snow out, it wasn't that cold and every building was so very warm. 

This is where we stayed

And just up a wooden board walk was a big conference center where the almost 24 hour a day scrappin' was going on and where we taught the classes.

We were teaching the MY TEN class...apparently there are 110+ pieces in the kit and we made 42 cards when we finally finished.  I wanted to show this picture from Valery's blog that shows her drawer.

What you might not see in the first picture is that she used a TH Memo Pin and a red clock, that is an extra piece in the kit to decorate her bottle.  Love that!

So we had to take this picture of ONE persons table (they shall remain nameless, but we did ask for permission to take the picture).  All we could say was WOW! I have never seen this kind of set up at a crop before...she even had a sewing machine at the end of her table. WOW, WOW, WOW!

There is a lake right behind the Lodge for boating in the summer but right now it's covered with a sheet of snow and ice.

Friends of ours, Anne Marie and Anita drove the 2 1/2 hours from Lethbridge to come to the morning class.  I suppose that is not too far considering they flew to Phoenix for the Advent class last November.  Anyway, we were happy to see them, as well as many of the ladies from the Scrap Yard that we met last year and new faces. 

We did have a few hours off on Saturday so our friend Purcel drove us up to Banff (a place I have always wanted to go).  It was a beautiful drive, so relaxing, great conversation, and a beautiful destination. 

The Banff Springs Hotel

Purcel took us on a tour of the hotel and grounds...what a lovely adventure.
One of the big dining rooms was set up for a dinner.  The stained glass windows have a crest and flower that represents each of the Provinces of Canada.

  The back of the hotel that looks out to the valley.  All the big windows are restaurants with fabulous views of the river valley below (and in summer, a golf course).

 There were even lots of people in the pool!

 Look at the bathroom doors...how cute is that?

 What a great day...teaching and a great day trip to the Canadian Rockies...who could ask for more?

Thanks to Lori for inviting us again and being a great host and friend.   And of course all the ladies who came... Lynn, Marilyn, Lucie, Pam, Monica, Reesa, Valery, Linda, and Melinda, Anne Marie and Anita...just to name a few.
And just an extra note for Pam... Remember, you cannot re-ink your Distress Stain Stamp pad with Alcohol ink even if it is the same color.