Today I'd like to show you the cards I made to swap at this year's convention. I wasn't going to make swaps this year, but at the last minute decided to "quickly" whip out 30 of them. I designed this one to be similar to the birthday card I made for my husband last month. Since I had used all the other stamps from the great new masculine set The Wilderness Awaits I figured I'd make a card using the one stamp I hadn't used yet.
The first thing I want to show you is the "candy dots" I made to put on my card. I love using them as an embellishment, but don't want to buy all the sheets I would need to keep up with so many of one color so this is what I do to make my own...
Punch out a bunch of circles the size you want (I used the three circles from the cupcake punch).
Next cover each circle with crystal effects. Make sure it is FULL. It shrinks drastically when it dries.
I punched out Soft Suede and did up a bunch as you can see.
This is what they look like when they've dried overnight. :) I really like using them and hope you might too. Just make sure you have a pair of tweezers handy!
Now onto the main picture of the card. First I stamped the dog with Black StazOn onto watercolor paper 3" x 4 1/2"...simple right? :)
Next I stamped with StazOn again like we had demo'd during the first general session...just ink up part of the stamp.
Here you can see it added to the bottom right of the card.
Then I did it again to the bottom left.
Now it's time to add the tree. I only inked up part of the stamp since I wasn't using the whole thing anyway. Less mess to clean up that way. :)
First tree...
Second tree...
Third tree. Pretty simple so far isn't it!:)
I know it's hard to tell in the pic, but my dog is completely wet using an aqua painter. I got him wet because I want the ink to bleed. It needs to be damp, but not covered in water.
I used my Soft Suede ink and aqua painter to start things out.
He's just a light brown for now since the water dilutes the color.
Yes, this looks like the same picture, but if it's big enough on your screen you can see that the dog is wet again. I did that so I could blend in more colors.
As you can see I missed a picture. I didn't realize I forgot it until my cards were done. :( What I did was add Basic Black here and there on the dog while it was still damp, then go back over it again with more Soft Suede. I didn't cover the black with the brown, but got just close enough so the started to bleed together. If you look at all the cards piled together you'll see that each dog turned out a little differently, but that's OK!
Now it's time to start adding in some green...Garden Green.
I made sure my aqua painter was damp, but not too wet and quickly added it to the trees and grass. I did this very quickly and didn't try to be precise at all.
I did the same thing with Always Artichoke.
It's little more green, but I didn't put quite as much on.
Now for the last green...Mossy Meadow.
I know it's hard to tell in the pics, but I did dab it on the grass and trees, but didn't do it out quite as far as the other greens so the other colors aren't completely covered.
Now it's time to start the hill or mountain. I ripped a used piece of paper to make my mountain shape. You can make it any shape you want...round or pointed.
Here I used my sponge and dragged downward with Mossy Meadow.
I pulled the scrap piece off so you can see the shape it made. :)
I did the same thing again with Always Artichoke, making sure I only pulled the sponge downward.
In this picture I added a touch of garden green.
And here's what it looks like with all three colors after I take off the scrap piece.
Now it's time to add the sky using Soft Sky.
If you look in the top left corner you can see I got the paper wet again. I got everything above the hill wet. I actually went into the hill just a touch.
And now I've added some blue in the top corner.
Keep on adding more blue on until the sky is covered. If there are a few spots that don't get it that's ok. That's just the nature of water coloring.
Now on to finishing it up by adding water to the hill. As you can see I just blobbed it on. I was just getting it wet so it starts to spread.
Here I've done the whole hill.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but I actually pulled the green down to go around the dog. I also pulled some of the green from the grass and trees to do the bottom and behind the trees.
I took this picture to show you the difference in both the hills and the dogs. I like them both, but water coloring is always going to turn out different even if you're trying to make them the same.
I have the main picture done!!
Finally a completed card. :) I used Soft Sky as my card base and Old Olive 4" x 5 1/4" as my first layer (even though I never used Old Olive ink! lol). Then I ran the Old Olive through the Big Shot using the Woodgrain Embossing folder, but I made sure I didn't do part of the bottom so I could stamp words onto it...
I layered my watercolor paper onto Very Vanilla 3 1/8" x 4 5/8" and attached both to the Old Olive card stock.
For the final touch I added the three "candy dots", then stamped "birthday and happy" (yes, in that order) and now I have a finished card!
Thanks to all of you who swapped with me, and took the time to read how I made my card on here! I hope you enjoyed my picture tutorial and are inspired to make something of your own using any of the great stamps from the set The Wilderness Awaits.
Sara
