Watercolour floral canvas

Hi everyone, it's Esther here with a canvas featuring lots of layers and texture. I used watercolour, but, having run out of watercolour ground, I worked directly onto gesso.

I started with adding texture paste in the corners and towards the middle through the My Favorite Things Moroccan Lattice stencil. 

The next stage was adding lots of watercolour using Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens. I scribbled colour at the edges and spritzed it with a water mister, tipping the canvas and letting the colour run towards the middle. I worked from lightest to darkest, adding less colour as they darkened, and drying in between. As the layers were not fixed, and would start running again when wetted with the next layer, I was patient with adding and repeating colours until I had the look I wanted. Colours used were 036 Light Blue, 042 Turquoise Green, 033 Persian Green, 034 Dull Blue, 038 Peacock Blue, 092 Blue Gray, 090 Gray, 095 Dark Gray and 010 Black.

Using the same stencil, I lightly tapped a damp sponge over the edges that hadn't had texture paste to lift the colour slightly.

To complete the base layer I lightly rubbed Nuvo Embossing Mousse in Cornflower Blue over the raised areas and some parts of the canvas to add a metallic sheen and highlight the texture.

For the middle layer of flowers, I then scribbled Zig pens on my craft sheet, spritzed with water, spritzed some card and mopped it into the beads of colour to get a grey-blue marbled effect on the card. I repeatedly stamped one of the My Favorite Things Funky Flowers using Moon Rock from the Altenew Warm Gray ink cubes set and die cut them using the matching Funky Flower Dienamics. I shaped the edges of the petals upwards and then arranged and glued them in the centre of the canvas using wet glue. A touch more of the Nuvo mousse highlighted the edges and random parts of the flowers.

The large word dies on the top layer are Concord and 9th Wonderful Words dies, cut from card, rubbed over with the Nuvo mousse and mounted on fun foam to make them more sturdy. The smaller sentiment, Dream Big, is from Mama Elephant Labeled Messages, stamped in Lava Rock from the Altenew ink cubes. The arrow is from My Favorite Things I'm Owl Yours and cut with the matching dienamics.

To finish off, I added some splatters of black acrylic paint over it all.

It was fun creating a canvas with supplies you might not normally associate with this! Thanks for stopping by.

      

      

February Challenge - Week 3

It's your final reminder to play along in this months colour challenge and this month I've gone with my personal "go to schemes"   As I'm sure you've guessed - teals and turquoise feature in lots of my makes along with lime greens (just like the logo) but one of my favourite options for card making is greys and yellows so hopefully you will find something that you can work with too.

You must use at least 3 shades from one of the options above AND use at least one product from the range we sell in store to be eligible for the £15 prize.  New projects only - no back linking.

Here are the DT's final inspiring posts to get your mojo flowing.

Esther
I couldn't resist the first colour palette of turquoise, lime and grey. This card uses Lil'Inkers Quilted Stitched Pattern Die, My Favorite Things Funky Flowers and matching Dienamics, Avery Elle Pierced Banner Layer Elle-ments and My Favorite Things Absolutely Fabulous Dienamics.

Gemma
I'm using the middle colour palette as I love yellow and grey together. My card features:
Mama Elephant Little Cat Agenda, MFT Stepped Up Chevron Die-namic, and
Mama Elephant Mini Messages.

You have until 10pm on Saturday 25th February to play along this month.  Link up to the challenges page here

Emboss resist watercolour birthday card

Hi everyone, it's Esther here with an emboss resist watercolour card that I loved making! I needed a birthday card for a lady I recently met who went out of her way to give me brilliant customer service several times when I was having trouble with my car. How great are people like that?

Using the largest of the Lawn Fawn Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables, I die cut a stitched rectangle panel from watercolour card. I deliberately kept the deckle edge of the card stock so it would give a gentle, slightly shabby chic feel to the bottom of the panel.

I wanted to get a soft, pretty look so I used an old favourite that I've not pulled out for a while, My Favorite Things Funky Flowers stamp set, heat embossed in white embossing powder. 

I used a large paintbrush to wet the card stock and then dropped in colour from two Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens: 081 Light Violet and 080 Violet. I softened and blended the colour with a smaller paintbrush. The embossed flowers resisted the colour so the white still pops through. Emboss resist is such a fun technique!

When it was dry, a splattering of water and then white acrylic paint over the top of the panel softened the look even more.

The sentiment is from Mama Elephant Make a Wish stamped in black ink.

Finally I used partial die cutting with the same stitched rectangle die as before to make a panel in coordinating coloured card stock that I attached underneath the top panel with glue tape. Both these panels were then attached to a heavyweight card stock base.

That's it - very simple, but I love the finished effect and might do something similar with snowflakes for my final Christmas cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by!