Hi everyone! It's Lisa and if you've been hopping along on the Inklipse 1,000 Subscriber Blog Hop...THIS is your last stop of the hop! You should have arrived here from the lovely Laurel Beard's blog (whom I'm sure you all know very well here in the CLASSroom).
- Simon is having a HUGE giveaway to celebrate and Ellen Hutson, LLC is even sponsoring the hop with a gift certificate. You must hop, comment, and enter to win, and the winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter on the Inklipse blog. Got all of that? Great!
The theme for this blog hop is near and dear to my heart. WATERCOLOR. I know. Take a moment. I know I did. I kinda squealed when I found out. (But don't tell anyone...well, now you all know, but keep it to yourselves, okay?) I kind of have a "thing" for anything watercolor-y. I just love being able to move the colors around and then watching them do what they do. It's a bit mesmerizing. And there are just soooo many products out there now!! It makes it so easy for anyone to start playing.
Here is what I made for Simon's hop:
I took the Merry & Bright to a whole new level, didn't I? ;)
Let me take you through the steps on how I put this together.
I used the Inkadinkado Embossing Magic Bag and prepped my entire piece of watercolor paper (smooth side) and then stamped all of my images using Versamark Ink.
Gold Embossing Powder is then poured over the entire surface, sticking to the Versamark ink. Tap off the excess and pour back into the container.
Now heat set it with a heat tool/embossing gun. (I usually allow my heat tool to warm up, heat from the underside and then heat it from above. That is just how *I* do things. We all do things a bit differently.)
Next you admire your watercolors. No, I'm just kidding. Well, sort of. Decide which watercolors you are going to use. There are so many options these days and I really love the Kuretake Gansai Watercolors so that's what I chose to use. That being said? I also LOVE using watercolor pencils, Gelatos®, and I'm just trying out the Peerless watercolors, too.
Spritz over the colors that you'll be using with a mini mister. Have a cup of water and watercolor brush ready. And start painting! Get your brush wet and pick your first color as you'll see in my next photos, I do what *I* like. Each time I create something is very different.
Allow the color to drip, move, and blend.
I wasn't going to completely cover the paper, but then I went ahead and did it anyway. I really loved these colors all together with the gold embossing powder serving as a resist. In the photo below the paper is still very wet.
Now the paper is dry and you can see that the color has softened and become a touch more muted.
Focusing on the sentiment now! I'm using the Essentials by Ellen Designer Dies, Merry & Bright, By Julie Ebersole. Let me just say that there are SO many options on how to use these dies. It really is an "essential" die set for the holidays. I centered the dies how I wanted them on some beautiful Gold card stock, and put some low-tack tape on top to keep them from shifting.
Then adhere this Gold piece onto an equal sized piece of Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L® Adhesive Sheets. (Cut the Adhesive Sheet to size first, peel back the yellow liner, and adhere.)
After the whole thing is run through your preferred die-cutting machine it will come out looking like this (and the adhesive keeps the die-cut pieces in place):
Cut a piece of vellum, tear the edge, and adhere to the back of the water-colored panel.
Adhere the die-cut "Merry & Bright" and do (what I call) a dry fit of your other pieces. This gives you time to fuss, before you adhere everything down.
I was fairly happy with the card at this point, except I distressed the right hand edge before adhering everything down. Despite all of my steps, this really is a simple card to put together. (I just don't like to leave anything out!!)
Here is a full list of your hoppers today:
