Two of your Five a Day!!

Hello there :0)... yes I've turned my attention to Fruit and Veg for my Monday morning blog post and it just so happens that today also marks the start of National Vegetarian Week too!!. I could pretend I planned it that way but that would be fibbing!!

I fell in love with the sketchy images in the Hero Arts 'Stamp Your Own Salad' set, they have a bold graphic feel and I could see textiles and patterns popping out at me so I suppose it's a bit odd that I should be trying watercolouring with these images. They help you cheat a little at watercolouring but the recipients of your projects will think you've spent ages on them :)

Because the images have a crosshatch scribbled look to them it means they lay down a nice amount of ink when you use distress ink pads so all you need is a damp waterbrush to fill in the base colour. I found second generation stamping best because its best to start with a pale colour!! Once the base colour is dry you can then build up extra layers and shades to add shape and texture to your images. It's all about taking some scrap watercolour card and having a play with ink and water :)

With the tomatoes above, I completed one fruit first and then blasted it with a heatgun to dry it off before stamping the second image behind it. You don't really need to make masks because you can roughly judge where to wipe the ink away from your image before you stamp it.... any overlap or gaps can easily be rectified when you add water. I got brave and tried inking half the tomato to make a wedge shape.... by wiping some of the ink away in the centre and using second generation stamping I managed to get a paler impression to work with. I Googled an image to make sure I replicated the inner colours and shapes right. I had a few practices first on scrap card :)

The carrots are created pretty much the same, one at a time and allowing them to dry in between layers. The tops aren't quite right for carrots (think they're supposed to be parsnips actually) but that's okay unless you show your husband who's a keen gardener!!

I stamped the tops in a pale green and used darker ink to colour them. The colour bled a little with these so I decided to go with it and work on that look but it's quite hard to make an accidental colour bleed look accidental!!

To finish them off I kept the base card simple and used Lawn Fawns Argyle and Gingham backdrops to add a subtle pattern. The sentiments are from Wplus9's Hand Lettered Thanks and Fresh Picked.

                

                           

Thanks for stopping by :)
Jenny x

A Hint of a Snowman!!

Hello there..... :0)

For my Christmas project today I've been playing with the Snowman dies from Paper Smooches...it's a rather cute set to help you build your own jolly snowman. I wanted to show you the dies because you actually receive two different sized snowman faces in the set which isn't shown in the die set graphics, they can be used independently from the body or layered over for some depth to your design.

For today's projects I've used them differently, first of all I turned the largest head into a template so I could stick the eyes nose and mouth onto the card front. I added colour before removing the template and then gave my little snowperson a hat and scarf to finish him off :0)

He sits quite nicely in place of the 'O' in the greeting, your eyes automatically see his round head even though its not there!!!  I've used Lawn Fawns Finleys alphabet dies, I just love how you can double them up so make them look 3D... but any alphabet would work here :0)

For my next project I used the negative spaces from more of the dies as a stencil and sponged ink through to build a whole snowman....

The hint of blue is just enough to make him look rounded and tricks your eyes into filling in the rest of his shape!! I made him into a tag using the Paper Smooches Quote Tag Dies...

With all the component parts in this set you could even make a 'Build your own Snowman' shaker card too!! ....... the possibilities are endless :0) Click on the products to take you to the store...

              


Now to something non-christmassy!! .... It's my card for this weeks photo inspiration challenge at Paper Smooches Sparks which uses the Knick Knacks stamp set..

Please do hop over and see the challenge photo and the inspiration from my teamies, we don't seem to have as many entries for these photo challenges!! You can take any small piece of inspiration from the photo for your card and we'd love to see you play along with us :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x