No Line Watercolouring with a twist

Stampin' Up! shared a no line watercoloring technique in our latest member magazine.  I've not done of lot of it so thought I'd have a go with this stunning ornament stamp from the Beautiful Baubles stamp set.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out for a first serious attempt.

I stamped the bauble on watercolour paper using Smokey Slate ink.  I slowly then added colour to each detail using a couple of aqua painters, one for painting with water first and the second for adding colour to each section.  I cleaned the second between  colours using kitchen towel.

The colours I used included Balmy Blue, Pear Pizzazz and Highland Heather. It takes some time as you need to let each section dry before you revisit it to add deeper shades and get some of the finer details.  Once complete I added some highlights with a white gel pen and some Wink of Stella for the inevitable sparkle that I believe an bauble needs.

Beautiful Baubles includes a 'string' stamp for the hanging of the bauble and a pretty bow stamp.  I embossed these in silver and added basic rhinestones.  The ornament itself I fussy cut and then went around the edge with a Balmy Blue marker pen to just highlight the edge and make it pop from the card base.

The sentiment is from the same Stampin' Up! stamp set and stamped simply in Highland Heather directly onto the card base.

Are you a fan of non traditional Christmas card colour combos?

Zoe x

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Christmas Card Club - Polar Bears of Teddy Bears

Valery chose Polar Bears or Teddy Bears for our Christmas Card Club Challenge this time. I was a bit stumped at first, but then remembered that Stampin' Up! set Cookie Cutter Christmas has a very cute bear and to be honest I had not used it before being drawn to the gingerbread man, Santa and Rudolph stamps instead.  However he's turned out to be perfect and I've teamed him up with some stickers from the Stampin Memories and More Santa's Workshop card pack, to give him a hat and cane. Once again the new Buffalo Check background stamp looks different in another colour namely Poppy Parade stamped onto card of the same name.

A handful of red rhinestones that I'm really finding useful for Christmas projects and a silver foil Happy stuck down by using the double sided adhesive sheets on the back of the foil card before die cutting it.  This helps you to cut a piece just the right size for the die.  The Christmas was stamped and heat embossed with white powder and die cut.

Now I started this challenge with a great plan to create a spinner card with the bear on a bauble and it got a little messy and complicated, but slowly it turned around and I'm happy to share although it isn't quite as elegant as I had planned, but then it is a spinner card with a teddy.

Using the Detailed Baubles Thinlits Dies I created an aperture for the spinner to fit inside and then I used a layering circle to cut one slightly smaller than the aperture.  I actually cut 2 in Pool Party and then stamped with the small Poinsettia flower from Dashing Deer and heat embossed a patterned in white.  I stamped and punched out the teddy from the Cookie Cutter set.  I added a layer of fine tip glue to the baubles and waited for it to dry as I was trying to create a sheen across the baubles. I added too much glue and so it was taking too long to dry.  I decided to add a teddy to each circle and push them down into the glue and then brushed of much of the glue so now instead of having a sheen they look more like papier mache which is fine just not what was planned.  I had to wipe off much of the glue so that the colour of the stamped bears didn't run.  It did a bit on the bow ties so to salvage I added another punched tie for each side.  Once done I left it to dry in the hope that all would not be lost.  It's turned out ok I guess in the end.  

 Now it was a little fiddly bringing it all together, but I used some silver cord from my stash and threaded it through the outer pretty border and by adding lots of double sided tape on each back of the bear circles I was able to secure it in the middle of the two circles.  I added pearls and a bow along with some more red rhinestones to enhance the bauble.

All's well that ends well and I think it would please a young child if not me! 

Remember the other ladies will have gorgeous creations to inspire you so please do visit their blogs via the Christmas Card Club button at the top of my blog, but just before you go here's a couple of pics of bears we saw in Canada on our trip this summer. 

Bears seen on our extended trip to Vancouver

I love bears

Happy Sunday all, hope you have a great week. I'm going to be busy visiting the hospital for my pre-op appointment with the hope that the scheduled operation the following week to fix my Achilles will go ahead.  Wish me luck.  

Hugs Zoe x

Challenges

Winterwonderland Challenge - use ribbon or twine

CHNC # 403 - Use gingham, check

Die cutting Divas - Any animal