Prima Watercolor Confections

Today I wanted to share a bit about Prima's Watercolor Confections.  I have been wanting to get these since they came out at CHA in January and was finally able to do so so I thought I'd share my initial impressions with you.

The paints come all wrapped up like individual little confection treats in this darling little pan!

So you pop 'em out and unwrap each one.  The color numbers are on each wrapper so for the most part I inserted them by number except for the Tropical set. It was no where near the order I wanted it to be in so I rearranged as desired which you can do with any of them.  The pans snap into this nifty little tray.

Note, if your pans aren't secure, remove the pan, push the little silver tab towards the center of the pan just a touch.  Insert the pan of paints and it should be a snug fit.

The paint tray fits into this wicked little box that has lots of different sized wells for mixing and blending.  LOVE this!!! 

The paint tray sits in the center of the box.

I was surprised about the size...each paint box is smaller than my phone!

Here you can see all of the colors - you can see I've already started playing by the dried paints in the palette sections.

And a few projects I made using them....  Whale painted with brush & water.  I realized after I painted the whale I used only blues from the various sets - which is why my water is so colorful - LOL!!  (Yes, I watercolor in my coloring books.  I don't mind the wrinkly pages.)

This background was painted with brush & water and a few of the tropicals.

My rainbow tree was made using colors from the various collections and a Niji waterbrush.  I used a few of the metallics on the trunk.  Really pretty effect which doesn't show up in the photo.

Aside from the adorable boxes these paints come in the paints are awesome too.  Lots of pigment and it mixes and flows nicely.  If you don't have paints and would like to try some watercolors these are a super set to try.  Wide range of colors and very nice finished look.

Winners - PL & Paints!

Hello Everyone -

I hope you're week has started off nice.... It's beautiful here in my little area of NE Indiana today - it's already sunny and in the 50's!  Not bad for the first full week of March, not that I'm counting on it staying this way or anything but hey, gotta take what you can get!

I have a couple winners for you....

First - the winner of the Crewel & Unusual Pocket Letter is....

rettaescapeFebruary 27, 2016 at 9:56 PM

Roni! Cute pocket letters. I have never received or made a pocket letter!

..and

The winner of the Kuretake Watercolors is....

AnneFebruary 22, 2016 at 6:35 PM

Hi, Roni. My favorites are the techniques for September and October. I completed two calendars which I have mailed away to friends and have a third one nearly finished. Will take some photos tomorrow and post them to my blog and post another message to you with a link to the blog. I'll put all 12 in one post to make it easier to see them all. Have loved this project! And thanks for the chance to win a really great prize! Anne

Congratulations Ladies!

Please send me your snail mail addy so I can drop your goodies in the mail.

Multi Layer Faux Batik

Today I have this multi-layered faux batik card featured over at IMAGINE Crafts blog!

I love how it turned out with all the deep rich colors, depth and dimension all created from nothing more than ink and embossing powders!

Be sure to check out the full instructions here -

Layers of Color

Sweet Parisian Birthday

Pink, chocolate and a touch of white...that's what this birthday card was inspired by.  It's actually the challenge colors over at Sunday Stamps Challenge blog - #121 - We have heart!

It just so happens that those are some of the colors in this month's Club Scrap kit - French Flea Market!!  The main image is a panel from the card kit, the pink background was stamped using a couple of the stamps from the kit as well using StazOn Spiced Chai.  

I love how the card turned out!

Supply List:

Club Scrap.com - Cardstock, Card Panel, Rubber Stamps, Ribbon, Tag

IMAGINE Crafts - StazOn - Spiced Chai

Other - Button

Sew and Sew Challenge - I WON!!

My MM collage I made for the Sew and Sew challenge 

over at Our Creative Corner won!!!

YEAH!!!

It was so much fun to make, glad I decided to join.

More Pocket Letter Examples

Just a few more fun pocket letters to share with you!

I rec'd this fun DIVA PL from Carolyn.

And this beautiful vintage woman PL from Debi.

And I made this - Make a Wish PL.

These things are just so much fun to make.

Would anyone like to swap a PL with my Mom (a.k.a. Dixie)?  PL's are her to passion and she's made one because she had an idea and didn't want to forget it - LOL!!  So, if you'd like to swap, please contact me and I'll get you hooked up.

Have an Inky Day!

Lucky Bouquet of Sharmocks

Today I wanted to share a watercolor card I made in honor of St. Patrick's Day...
A Lucky bouquet of Shamrocks just for you!

This is a single layer card made with just watercolor, 

pen work and a stamped sentiment (from JFF Stamps).

This is a wet on dry watercolor technique... 

Paint a little, let it dry then paint some more.

The key to this technique is layers...

I started off by drawing simple hearts for the shamrocks and kept adding more layers of color.

I'm not real happy with the bow but it's not the worst either.

Ink on my friends - Ink On!

Supplies:

Watercolor Paper
Koi Watercolors
IMAGINE Crafts - Memento Ink, Memento Dual Tip Markers
JFF Stamps - sentiment

Creative Medium & Gelatos Mixed Media Combo

I was messing around the other day with stencils and I stumbled upon a fun mixed media technique. See....actually I'm not very good about cleaning up my stamps or stencils unless it's something that could potentially damage my tools.  Well, I pulled out a stencil that I wanted to use on a collage and I noticed it had a bit of Gelatos medium left over from another project.  I didn't bother to clean it but left it on to see what would happen and I'm so glad I did! 

Let's play...

Since I used up the Gelatos that was left over we're going to dab a bit on to simulate "left-overs".  It doesn't have to be much, just a few dabs here and there.

Affix the stencil to a piece of white cardstock Gelatos side up.

Next, smear on the Creative Medium to fill in the stencil.  By smearing the CM around you transport the Gelato colors to the cardstock without washing them out because the CM is thicker than say a liquid glue or water.  You in turn get lovely speckles of color suspended in the CM.  

Remove the stencil and wash - but if you don't, you can easily peel if off the CM once it dries (which is what I do most of the time).

Once the CM has dried you can use this piece as a focal point, background, die-cut it, cover it with watercolor paint - which is what I did with the example at the top of the post or anything else you can think of!

This card was made from the piece from the demonstration.  The added benefit of using the Creative Medium is that you are also left with LOTS of wonderful texture and dimension.  

For this example I went one step further - after removing the stencil while the CM was still wet I sprinkled a fine clear (iridescent) glitter over the entire panel.  It doesn't show in this photo but the shine and sparkle is amazing!  The fun thing is that where there is color left from the Gelatos the glitter actually looks colored.  It's of course just reflecting the light from the color but it is a cool effect.

So there you go...a fun mixed media technique to incorporate into your design arsenal!  Hope you give it a try and let me know how you like it.

Supplies:

IMAGINE Crafts - Creative Medium (original), Memento Ink - Lady Bug, Grape Gelly, Palette Knife

Faber-Castell - Gelatos

Georgia Pacific - White Cardstock

ClubSrap.com - Stencil, Cardstock

Altenew - Sentiment Stamps

Crafters Companion - Thank You die

My Fav. Things - Rose & Leaf Dies

Koi Watercolors

Dresden Trim

Coloring Book Fun!

Have you tried your hand at coloring?  I tell you I am so excited about all of these fun new adult coloring books popping up everywhere.  It's so relaxing to sit down and just color for the fun of it.  It also helps hone those skills for card making.

Today I wanted to share a few pages I've colored recently...

From Natural Wonders Color Art - Leisure Arts

I colored this page with a combination of colored pencils, Inktense watercolor pencils and Koi watercolors.

Natural Wonders Color Art - Leisure Arts

This one was colored using Prismacolor Pencils and filled in with black marker.  The pattern was VERY busy in the background (see below) which I didn't like so I just colored the things I liked and blacked out the rest.  You can tell my marker was stronger at the top and was running out of juice at the bottom.  I need to get a new one or switch to black acrylic paint maybe.

I just don't get all the little lines in the background on some pages...I don't like them so I make them disappear - LOL!!

Sea Live - Skyhorse Publishing

This is all Prismacolor pencils - I also used a blender pencil for many areas which makes a world of difference!

Living Wonders - Leisure Arts

I had SOOOO much fun with this one...  Initially, I started out with the brown owl in the center. I colored him using a combo of my Inktense and Staedtler watercolor pencils. Then I was stumped...I didn't have that many colors of brown watercolor pencils so I just left it set for a week or so.  I went back to it and decided that I can make the owls any ol' color I wanted and went wild!  I used a combination of my watercolor pencils, Prismacolor & Spectrum Noir colored pencils.

I'll be back tomorrow with some tips on coloring these fun pages that I've discovered since I started playing with these fun books.

Brand New Challenge - Just For Fun Rubber Stamps!

YES!!  Just For Fun Rubber Stamps blog is now hosting a new monthly challenge!  These are going to be fun easy challenges to you stamping.  We're going to be switching things up each month with a different type of challenge - it could be an inspiration word or phrase, a card sketch, a photo/color inspiration, etc.  The best part - there will be a prize each month!!

To kick things off we're pushing the seasons a bit because we're tired of winter so the 

March JFF Challenge 

Inspiration Word is:

And here are a couple cards I made for the challenge....

JFF Stamps: Large Loop Petal Daisy; Small Loop Daisy;  

String Art Daisy; Happy Spring sentiment

This card was made using the washi tape/masking tape technique by inking and stamping between two pieces of torn tape.  Love this technique!  The background colors are PanPastels that I then stamped a trio of different flowers over the strip of color using Memento Dye Inks.  I stamped the sentiment then finished off the card with a few sequins for a bit of sparkle.

JFF Stamps: Crocus

I love how simple this card is because it really lets the stamped & watercolor image shine.  Stamped with Memento Ink then water colored using my Koi watercolors.

Be sure to check out the challenge:

March JFF Challenge

for other inspiring Spring projects from the rest of the team and to enter your Spring inspired project to win a GC to JFF Rubber Stamps!

This challenge will run from March 1 - March 31st 

so you have plenty of time to enter.