Watercolor – that word can put the fear into any stamper but Kay Miller walked us through a beautiful watercolor project that made it easy peasy!

I started by stamping images on watercolor paper and then went back in with some water and smooshed around the flowers. The key – dry the paper between layers and not to blur the stamped image so much you can't tell what it is!  After drying, I added some water to the leaves.

I was pretty timid as I didn’t want to mix the greens with the reds/yellows of the mums. But now that I look at the finished card, I should have pushed the colors around more to get rid of the white space. This will need some practice.  These mums look like macaroons and not flowers - LOL!

After all the smooshing, it was time for the speckling of some red on the flowers (and not on the leaves but you can see how that turned out!). Then more drying. I added the sentiment and then did a little blending of the line under the sentiment. More drying and then I cut down the card front, added to the base and attached some rainstones. I love how Kay took the intimidation out of watercoloring!

I skipped the pointillism challenge because I just couldn’t find an image I wanted to try that on. However, the technique is really cool and I am going to give it a try. I am also skipping the color block challenge – as cool as it looks – I was tired and wasn’t feeling any mojo for this one.

Overall I thought this was a fun Stamp-a-faire. I tried some new things and am excited to make them a part of my stamping. I don’t plan on posting again until Friday so have a great week and I hoped you enjoyed my SAF cards!

Thanks for stopping by!!

For this challenge we got to get down and dirty. If you love flinging paint (or food!), this is the challenge for you! Lizzie Jones ran us thru the different ways to add splatter to your card. You may think that splatter is splatter but it is not! I learned a few new tips and tricks!

I used some distress inks to make puddles of color for splatter on my card. I picked four bright colors and set to work. I opted to go with the more traditional types of splatter than the long strings and big drips.

I was about two colors in when I should have heeded Lizzie’s advice to cover up anything you don’t want splatter on! Including you! I am pretty sure I have a variety of ink colors on my face!

But what fun- it didn’t take long to make and I love the brightness of the overall look. I added the sentiment, flags and some dots and bling to finish the card.

Next – my last challenge for the SAF – mum’s the word!

This challenge is all about creating a card that is inspired by the PTI design team’s favorite master artists. As I scrolled through the choices, only one really leapt out at me and that was Betsy Veldman’s favorite – Ralph Hulett.

When I saw that pink scrub brush tree I knew instantly what I was doing. I made a very CAS card with just two stamps, one die cut and three colors (four if you count white).

As I searched my stash I discovered that I didn’t have the petite places church die but I did have the school. And since, in the very old days, it used to be common to use the schoolhouse for a church, I decided it would make a great substitution.

So I die cut the school twice and adhered together. I placed the school just slightly over the stamped scrub brush tree and then added the sentiment. Love it!

Next up – splish splash you are going to need a bath after this one! LOL!

So our next challenge was impressionism. And I will say that the results are beautiful! But man, did it take some time to do. When I finished, I wasn’t so sure that I would ever want to do this again but overall I am very pleased.

This technique is very long so I would suggest watching the video that Melissa Phillips did to give it a try yourself. My one suggestion is to use watercolor paper for both the card front and the card base. She says you can use cardstock for both parts but I didn’t find that worked too well and had to start over on the flowers. And then when I did used cardstock for the base, it warped because of the water.

Next up – get your green jacket cause we are going to the Masters!

Danielle Flanders challenged us to use gold leaf on a project. So I did. And promptly ruined two dies. I am sick. Too bad I didn’t follow the directions!

So here is what you are supposed to – die cut and then gold leaf the cut out. I thought I would save some time and gold leaf the chipboard and then die cut. Hello ruined dies. Cripes! I did have to giggle at my stupidity!

So I die cut the leaf out of gold adhesive paper and stuck to the card after adding the sentiment. So I cheated a little – but I was pretty sick over the dies and didn’t feel like dealing with the gold leaf again! Lesson learned – oh and the fact that I will be reordering the leaf silhouette dies.

On a bright note – I followed the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge for the card.

Onward and upward! Next – that don’t impress me much and yet it does! LOL!

So the starry night challenge was next and we were supposed to do some ink blending and watercoloring. As I didn’t have the heart to do the whole background, I opted to do just a small portion and love how it turned out.

I watercolored with some of the PTI inks and then added in some trees in the left corner. I added some drops of water and then dried the paper.

I die cut Lord three times and adhered together before placing on the card over some gold thread. I added a few sequins and the rest of the sentiment and was done!

Next – there’s gold in them in thar hills!

Hello! I have been busy crafting away and playing along with the Papertrey Ink Stamp-a-faire day! I decided to get a bunch of the challenges done and then do the postings later. So here I am.

Our first challenge was to create a card from the provided master color recipes. I opted to use the one for Georgia O’Keefe and the sketch from the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I started by stamping some flowers in multiple colors and then die cutting a tag. After that I die cut the word BE three times and stacked together.

Then I added a thin flag and stamped the rest of the sentiment on it. I layered everything up and was done. I love my interpretation!

Now – I am off with stars in my eyes to the next challenge!

Tonight kicks off the Papertrey Ink Stamp-a-faire weekend! Yay!

The “zero” challenge before everything starts is to show off a project we are most proud of. That is actually very hard for me as I have many favorite projects but I narrowed it down to three.

I first posted this card on June 8, 2015. It has everything I love – daisies, CAS and my linen impression plate!

My next card was posted on July 13, 2015 and is just so CAS that it quickly became an overall favorite of mine.

And finally – this card from the Stamp-a-faire last year. This was my favorite of all the cards I made for SAF. I broke the rules a bit by straying from the assigned inspiration – but really – isn’t that what creativity is?

Super excited to see all the challenges tomorrow! I will have a lot of posts over the next couple of days so please bear with me!

Happy weekend all!