Book Study: Subtracting Watercolor

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her projects " Illumination" and "The Key Point". In these projects, Nancy makes a watercolor wash with a large foam brush and watercolor crayons, then removes some of the background wash with dry rubber stamps. Check out her book for the gorgeous creations she made.
I don't have watercolor crayons, but do have some watercolor paints. First, moistened a foam paint brush, then spread some blue watercolor paint along the bottom edge, sprayed with more water to moisten the paint, then brushed it over coated card stock.
Quickly, while the paint was still wet, stamped dry rubber stamps in to the paint to remove some of the paint, to create light images.

For the next step, Nancy colored her rubber stamps with the same watercolor crayon. Not having the crayons, I colored my stamps with the same watercolor paint used to make the background. Squirted the paint on to a bit of paper towel and sponged iton to my stamps, then stamped them on to the background. I liked how this gave me the opportunity of doing the music stamp with different amounts of paint.

When the paint had dried, over stamped the herons and dragonfly with dark blue dye ink along with the word "discover". Then stamped a saying and more dragonflies with black Archival ink and heat set.

Trimmed the card stock, colored the edges with black Archival ink and heat set. Tore a strip of white card stock and adhered to the left side of a dark blue card. Glued the stamped card stock on top.

Below you can see the same card made earlier when I grabbed the wrong supplies.

What happens when I grab the wrong supplies

I wanted to work on a project from Nancy Curry's Book (see post above), but didn't realize I was grabbing acrylic paint instead of watercolor and stamp cleaning solution instead of water. I don't do well in the heat. I think my brain takes a vacation when it gets over 90 F LOL.
I sprayed coated card stock with the cleaning fluid. Put purple acrylic paint on the end of a large brush, sprayed the brush with more cleaning solution and spread over the wet card stock.
While the paint was still wet, used dry stamps to remove some of the paint to revel light images.

Over stamped the same images in a light purple dye ink, which didn't show at all, so brushed on some purple perfect pearls while some of the images where still damp.

Next, over stamped the same images with dark purple dye ink.

Stamped some text and more dragonflies with black Archival ink and heat set.

Trimmed down the card stock, roughly inked up the edges with black Archival ink and heat set. Tore a strip of black coppery metal paper and layered on the left side on black card stock, then added my stamped page. Finished with a copper metal butterfly charm.

Like how it turned out, even though I started with very different materials than planned LOL.

Mermaid Costume

My granddaughter will soon be four. She wants a Little Mermaid costume for her birthday. Here is what I made. Instead of sewing a sheer top with the bikini top sewn on (which would probably be too itchy) I bought a sheer short sleeve top and sewed the bikini top on with elastic to stretch. The swimsuit fabric was perfect: green & blue with lots of sequins.

Covers for The Amazing Technicolor DreamBook

Had an idea to make covers for the Amazing Technicolor Dreambook Swap I'm participating in over on Chunky Book Artists. Decided to not procrastinate, and create while inspired. LOL
Started with text weight papers in the colors of the rainbow, cut into strips and embossed them with various Cuttlebug embossing folders. Highlighted the raised areas with similar color dye ink pens .
Cut two large tags out of cardboard, slightly larger than the size of the tag pages that will be added once they've all been received. Found a marvelous colored vintage image to go on the front cover. Printed out the title and cut into squares, glued onto the cover. Used Zutter Bind-it-All to punch out the holes to eventually put the book together.

For the inside cover, decided to try Tim Holtz's Alcohol Ink Air Splatter technique. See his video demo here. Love the bright vibrant colors, perfect for this book.

Cut the paper into large tag shapes slightly smaller than the cardboard. Stamped swirls using black Archival ink.

After gluing these backgrounds to the inside of the covers, I added colorful vintage images, quotes on colors, punched out flowers from the leftover embossed papers used on the outside covers. Found assorted colored rhinestones to be the floral centers.

Used same embossed papers on the outside back cover. Made a label out of the leftover alcohol splatter paper.

I'll probably do some altering/adjusting to these covers once I have all the tags and have put the book together. It's fun receiving the pages and seeing all the color ideas and techniques.

Book to hold "In this House" Swap

Spent the morning clearing up my crafting area, which was piled up with all sorts of things. Came across the House pages I received in a swap last year with the Chunky Book Artist group, and realized I hadn't made a holder for them yet. I decided to create a book to hold the pages and went for a neighborhood feel. Cut out a double house shape for the back out of rigid cardboard, and two fence shapes out of grungeboard. Both sides of all of these were painted with a light, bright green acrylic paint. On the back piece, I used a tool to scrape off some of the paint and waited for it all to dry.
I used a variety of StazOn and Brilliance inks to stamp images on the the back cover.

I covered the front covers with a very thick layer of Distress crackle paint using a Popsicle stick to layer on the crackle paint and let it dry. The thicker the layer of crackle paint, the more the crackles will appear.

Found the grungeboard very hard to run through the Cuttlebug, especially with the thick layers of paint added. Ended up using the thick base and just the one C plate. Wasn't the deep embossing I usually get, but there was enough of a raised area to highlight with green Brilliance ink. Also used this ink to color the edges. Thankful I didn't break my machine.

Used the Zutter Bind-it-All to put the book together, with half the pages attached to the left side and half attached to the right side. I attached two gorgeous dominoes with shrink plastic images made by Sweetpea to the front "fence".

Book with front "fences" open. The pages in the front are the ones I made for the swap. "House of Blues" on the left and "Bird House" on the right.

Middle of the book, I like how this binding on both sides gives the look of a village when opened up. Here's a peek at some of the gorgeous house pages I received in the swap.

Book with all the pages opened:

Back of book. Down with the same color inks as on the reverse side, without the black and copper images.

Glad I finally made this project, and all the house pages are easy to see.

Book Study: Batik Resist Technique 3

Here's my third card using this technique. This time I stamped a clock face and some numbers onto mulberry paper with the embossing ink, covered in clear embossing powder and heat set.
After spraying the mulberry paper with water, sprayed with walnut ink.

Then sprayed with Bronzite Brass Color Mist and let dry.

Stamped some words and clock bits with black Versafine ink and a different clock face with coffee bean Brilliance ink onto the mulberry paper.

Added black brads to the clock parts and attached to a piece of light brown paper and then to a black card.

Book Study: Batik Resist Technique 2

This is my second card, using this technique. I stamped some butterflies with a watermark pad, covered with clear embossing powder and heat set.

I sprayed the mulberry paper with water, then choose three mini-misters with left over homemade color sprays and sprayed over the paper. Then let dry.

After ironing off the embossing powder, stamped some more butterflies with lavender Brilliance ink and heat set.

Stamped some words onto the mulberry paper with both black Versafine ink and repeat with denim blue Distress ink. Layered onto white paper then attached to purple card. Glued on three silver dragonfly charms.

Book Study: Batik Resist Technique 1

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her project "Love is Blue". Nancy demonstrates the batik resist technique using mulberry paper and dark intense watercolor paints for a fabulous look. Check out her book for her gorgeous card and detailed instructions.

I tore out a piece of mulberry paper and stamped on three bold flowers with a watermark pad, covered with clear embossing powder and heat set.

Following Nancy's instructions, placed the stamped mulberry paper on top of waxy palette paper and sprayed the paper with water to thoroughly wet the paper.

Used two colors of Dr Ph Martins Iridescent colors (one at a time) to brush on color. Then let dry.

Placed the mulberry paper between two sheets of copy paper and ironed off the embossing powder.

Layered the mulberry paper over a slightly smaller piece of white paper with yellow dots. Used silver brads to attach the mulberry paper to the white layer, then adhered to a purple card. Die cut out letters j-o-y from silver metallic card stock. Added a pink/purple ribbon with yellow dots attached with a silver flower buckle.

Quilted Tablecloths

I rented time on a long arm machine to quilt these two tablecloths, finally got the bindings done. Loved the black fabric in the top quilt and couldn't bring myself to cut it into small pieces, so found this pattern with large blocks to show off the gorgeous fabric.

We had a long wet gray spring, so I grabbed these fun bright fabrics and made this colorful tablecloth. It will cheer up the room any day of the year.

July Quote of the Month Swap

The July Quote of the Month on ccswaps is, "The man who has no imagination has no wings" Muhammad Ali. I thought this would be a great use of my butterfly background paper I made earlier. To go with the page, I cut out two butterflies with a Cuttlebug die out of some glittery paper that had been in the bottom of my spray box. Then ran the butterflies through both the bubbles embossing folder and the traditional butterfly image embossing folder. Colored the raised areas and the edges with purple ink.
Trimmed down the butterfly resist background paper and colored the edges with a gold leaf pen. Cut out an image of a man along with a boy on his hands. Added one set of butterfly wings to the boy and adhered to the background along with the other butterfly. Wrote out the quote on the same paper I used to make the butterflies, cut out the words and adhered to the background.

Decided this quote and my creation would make a great cover for a sketch book. To make the sketch book, cut two pieces of light purple mat board to 8" x 6". On the front, stamped some typeface words with black Versafine ink and stamped french script with light blue Brilliance ink.

For the back cover, stamped light blue Brilliance ink over sequin waste, stamped the french script with light purple Brilliance ink, and a saying & dragonfly images with black Versafine ink. Then inked the edges of the mat boards with the black Versafine ink.

Cut sketch paper to fit inside the book and bound it with the Zutter Bind-it-All. Glued my quote of the month creation to the front cover.

Had some left over fairy scrapbook paper in the mauve color, thought this went along with the imagination/wings theme, so used this paper to make the inside covers. Added some words stamped on with black Versafine ink. Inked the edges with light purple Distress ink. Front inside cover:

Back inside cover:

Added a winged vintage image to the back cover:

Hope the recipient enjoys this sketch book.