Tag Archives: watercolor stamps

Last Day for InCoWriMo2017!

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Today is the last day of February, and therefore, the last day of InCoWriMo2017.  I can’t claim a full victory, but I think I can do half a lap.  I managed to get out 22 pieces of correspondence, 19 of which went in the mail, and three of which were hand delivered.  I wrote to complete strangers through the InCoWriMo website, the Bullet Journal Pen Pal Group on Facebook, and Instagram.  I sent a few letters to friends, and family members received birthday cards.  Joe was not only the recipient of a Valentine’s Day card, I also made him a card with one of my new dies.

Ok, so before I show you this new die, let me say this.  This die lead me to a internet ordering freeze.  I have no idea what I was thinking buying this die, other than it was on the HSN 60% off partial craft day show, and I just got sucked in my the sale.  But, in truth, while it is super cute, I have very little use for it, and it was only $10 off, not 60%.  I just get so entranced when I’m watching the HSN crafters, and I get lured in by the sales pitch person who ooo’s and aaahh’s.  Anyway, after this purchase, I called Halt! And, I haven’t ordered anything other than a replacement nib for my dip pen in two weeks.  Yippee for me!  Can I just tell you how much money I have saved?  You don’t know how much you’re spending until you’re not spending I guess.

Anyway, here is said die:

These dies, one an owl, one a fox, are part of the Sissix Fold-Along Card series.  You place the die on the fold, there’s no cutting edge on the fold, though, and what happens is you get the gatefold card, shaped like the owl or the fox, with a tab to slip the sentiment cut out in.  So cute, right?  But, all of the stamp sentiments are really lovey dovey, and I would only make cards with that mush for my husband, and how many owl and fox cards can I make him?  So, I made him the fox card, and he was like, yeah, thanks, because he’s just not into those kinds of things.

As you can see, the owl went out as part of InCoWriMo.  That insert card is a separate die, so that’s nice, but if you want to mat the owl in anyway, you have to freehand cut, or cut another base, and cut that out to mat whatever part of the card you want, like those inside panels.  The bottom line is, these dies are cutie patootie, but the odds of me using them again . . . slim.  There are a few really usable stamps in the owl set though – with feathers and such, so I think I will get some use out of those.  The fox is really Valentine’s Day-ish, but whatever.

Before these dies, I also bought more Art Impressions Watercolor Stamps – as part of the crazy online ordering phase.  I would say to myself, it’s just a rubber stamp, but then there’s two stamps, then three.  It all just adds up.

These are the cards I made with my new stamp set, the covered bridge.  The reason I bought this stamp set was because it’s a mini set, so it’s cheaper than the large set, and it came with 2 different trees, and a kind of flower/leaf stamp – foliage is always good, and helpful for different scenes.  I think I’ve talked about these water color stamps before, but if I haven’t, just briefly what you do is color the main image with a water soluble marker.  Once the image is stamped, you pull the color out of the stamped image with a slightly damp brush.  Then, you do the same with the rest of the images – so for the trees, I used a brown marker for the trunk, and a green marker for the top – and that was it.  Anyway, they definitely have a handmade feel to them, because I haven’t quite mastered how to do a textured/weathered look with watercolor.  Anyway, I do love these stamps, and when the buying freeze is over . . . no, not unless I need them, yup.

In any event, I’m glad that my ordering freeze came at the same time as my fountain pen frenzy.  I have my two pens, the two Metropolitans, one in a fine nib, and one in medium, and I love them both.  And, if I were still in ordering anything mode, I’d probably have ordered up a half dozen other pens and ink upon ink, but instead, I’m learning what I like about the pen, I’m thinking more cautiously about my next pen, and I’m not at all in a hurry to do anything.  Although, I really really do want this ink.  The buying freeze comes to an end on 3/8, because that’s the next HSN marathon craft day, and it’s just unreasonable think I won’t order something.  So, the ban will come off, and I will dust off my paypal account, and I will try to take everything I’ve learned in the last two long weeks of purchasing diet, and only buy ONE THING.  Yes, yes.

So, in other news, I totally changed up my shawl for the MKAL, and I hate it.  More on that tomorrow.

And, I’m all settled into my Foxy Fix and I hate that too.  More on that later, too.  But, just so I don’t cause any kind of controversy about Foxy Fix, I love the notebook – I just don’t love the size.  The size was a mistake.  But, that’ll probably be the Thursday or Fridays topic.

Laters!

 

 

Tempest Tossed

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On one hand, I feel like I should be running down to the airport, with my signs and my fist in the air;  not only is it the right thing to do, but I know that I would feel energized, and hopeful, and frankly, American.  But, the bottomline is, this President just doesn’t give two shits.  He doesn’t even give one.  Instead of saying, I hear you, he points fingers, and signs more executive orders, and with every day, gets closer to crowning himself king.

But, I go to my crafting to escape, and if you’re actually here, this place is an escape too – because you can find politics anywhere you look on the web, doesn’t have to be here.  So, if you’re curious, and you want to know the process, not the product, here it is.

I downloaded an image of the statue of liberty.  I cut it out, and stuck it to my paper with repositionable tape.  The first time, I watercolored, and inked around the statue.  Then, I pulled the mask up, and voila! An outline of the Statue of Liberty.

After I botched the first try, I used this as a draft to figure out where the writing was going to be.  If I had to do it again, and I guess I could do it again, since I splotched up the f in “lift” by sticking my wrist in the wet ink when I went back to cross my t’s – uch!  Muffed up right at the last second, when I was just about to call it done.  But, if I were going to do it again, I’d probably go back to the watercolor, and skip that purple ink – it just didn’t blend well, even with my Tim Holz blending pads.  And, then, after I hung my statement on the wall, where at least I care about it, I moved on to my new watercolor stamps.

I don’t know about you, but in between being horrified by the nightly news and my social media feed, I mindlessly watched CHA video after CHA video, or Creativation as they’re calling it now.  It’s a trade show, it wants to suck me into buying things, and I’m good with that.  New paper! New dies! New stamps! oh my!  The biggest time suck was the Blitsy swag giveaway.  Blitsy filmed 3 days worth of mini segments at a dozen or so booths.  At the end of every segment, they gave you a secret word, which was access to a giant swag giveaway.  I think it was during one of those videos that I discovered Art Impressions Stamps, well at least the watercolor stamps, because their line of strange heavy set lady stamps are a little bizarre to me, but there’s something for everyone I guess.

The watercolor stamps are watercolor painting cheaters.  You stamp the image with watercolor marker, or whatever water soluble product you have, and then you add some color, pull out more color with a wet brush, and you too can look like a watercolor master.  Well, close.  Well, closer than I would have without the stamp.

Because I was just experimenting, I bought the cheapest set on Blitsy, the mini- barn set, which I think was just about $9.  The bigger sets run between $17-and $20, at full price.

As you can see the set comes with three unmounted cling stamps that are just basic outlines of the images – the barn, the tree, and the fence.  Huh, I guess I should have taken a before photo, but no matter.  Trust me, you can do this! The image looks like the outline on the top of the packaging.  Because I have one package of Tombow Markers that’s missing the brown marker, I stamped in black, and then used my set of Koi watercolors to color in the barn, and the trees.  If you have a good assortment of watercolor markers, you can just add more color to the stamp.  You really don’t need to get out your watercolors at all if you really want to keep it simple.  Anyway,  I stamped the barn first, and then I masked it, so I wouldn’t stamp over the barn with the trees.  There’s a good video of how to do this on the  Art Impressions youtube channel.  Art Impressions uses a masking paper, which has a sticky substance on the back.  I just used repositionable tape, just like I did the Statue of Liberty.  So, you stamp the barn on scrap paper, and cut out around the barn any place you don’t want the stamp to show – so that the trees are in the background.  Then you position the scrap barn over the good barn, and peel it away when you’re done stamping the trees.  Or if you want to start with a tree, you can stamp the tree, create a mask for the tree, stamp the barn, and then create a mask for the barn, and then stamp the background trees.  The idea is, start with the image that’s closest in the foreground, and work your way back.  If anyone wants to see photos of how I did this, just leave me a message in the

And, of course, since I’m getting read for InCoWriMo2017, I turned them into easel cards:

Basically, these cards stick up like an easel – there’s a foam stopper covered with patterned paper that you wedge the card behind, but the card can also be folded flat to go in an envelope.  Of all of the Crafter’s Companion card tutorials, this is by far the easiest one.  You just take a sheet of 5 1/2 x 11 paper, fold it in half, and then fold a gatefold on one end, then you tape a 5 1/2/ x 5 1/2 square on that gatefold flap.  Apply foam, done.

Of course, I forgot that my ink was going to explode on the watercolor paper – should have just just lettered in the card stock.  Oh well.

Now that I know I really love these stamps, I ordered another set that has a flower stamp, it’s a mailbox with a bird and some foliage.  I definitely have ideas about combining the two sets.  I originally thought the flowers came with the barn based on the packaging, but they don’t.  You have to be careful when you buy these stamps to make sure of what’s actually included – sometimes you get more than you thought you were getting (there’s one set that has a barn on a cliff, and the set also comes with a lighthouse), or less (mostly foliage and flowers – there’s a separate foliage set, flower set, and tree set, but some of the projects do come with flowers).  And, of course, there are new sets coming out that debuted at CHA, although to me, they pretty much look like the old sets, although I think some of them have critters now, like a bunny or a squirrel or something like that.  They also have this pretty cool die that’s coming out- it’s a 3d frame, with an easel, so you can stand up your watercolor masterpieces.

So, that’s all for now.  Next, I’ll share my latest nonpolitical obsession, to fountain or not to fountain, that’s the question.