Cherry Blossom Watercolor Tutorial

I’ve been really into watercolors and the versatility of them. However, I have very little skill in drawing, which makes watercoloring difficult…or so I thought. I recently started watching Art Impressions tutorials on Youtube where they use their watercolor stamps with water-based markers to stamp with. Then they go in with a waterbrush and just smudge out the lines to color in the structures. The end result is a gorgeous watercolor scenery that took minimal effort to make. They make it look so easy.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any Art Impressions stamp sets but I did pick up “Birch Land” stamp set from Altenew (one of my favorite brands!!!) on a previous haul. This stamp set features a beautiful tree with branch pieces and different sized arrays of leaves.

The details in this stamp set is beautiful, the lines are super crisp and the stamp set was meant to be layered. I love the sentiments in this stamp set and how I can mix and match words to make a custom sentiment.

I used Tombow Dual Brush pens in the Landscape Palette to stamp the tree, branches and bird house. I also used Distress Inks to stamp the leaves.

And this is what I came up with!

I started with a long strip of water color paper that I had left over from another project.

For the tree and branches I used Tombow N25. Then taking a waterbrush (a wet watercolor brush will work fine too) I went over some of the inked parts on the tree and branches and started pulling some of the ink towards the centre of the tree to color it in. I made sure not to color the entire tree “grey” so that there are some dark spots and some light spots to add additional dimension. This part may need some practice as pulling too much ink inwards could blur the lines and lose detail in the work.

For the birdhouse I used Tombow 899. Again I used the waterbrush to color in the birdhouse.

The blossoms were stamped using a mix of Distress inks in work lipstick, tattered rose and fired brick. Layering these worked really well just keep in mind that if you’re unsure of where to begin, always start with the lightest color first. You can always stamp over it with a darker color later.

The basket was stamped in Distress Ink dried marigold. Then I stamped the same ink pad on an acrylic block and picked up some of the color with a damp brush and started coloring the basket in, leaving a bright/light spot in the middle to give the basket more dimension.

Finally, I finished the wet media part by stamping a sentiment.

To finish everything off, I cut the top white space of water color paper off the top and adhered it onto a grey piece of cardstock. Then I added a silver eyelet at the top and strung some strands of pink ribbon through.

To preserve the watercolor and prevent it from fading and smearing, spray it with a light mist of cheap hairspray to seal everything. Learned this trick from my watercolor instructor when I still took art lessons.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, let me know what you think in the comment box below. And let me know if you tried this or if you have any questions about what I did!

 

5 craft fair treasures for the thrifty crafter in need of inspiration

I recently visited a few craft fairs before Christmas. One was at the PNE forum called Make It! and the other was at the local Croatian Cultural Centre which was jovially called the “Last Minute Christmas Market” as it was held quite close to Christmas day. I love attending craft fairs because they’re so full of ideas, creativity, imagination and inspiration. I’m always amazed by what people can accomplish using simple every day materials. Below are a few examples of the wonderful things I saw.

*Disclaimer: I don’t make royalties for posting the following vendors on my blog, I just thought they were pretty awesome and I would like to share them with the world.

List of awesome inspiring creations found at the craft fairs:

1. Repurposed books and book covers

Someone was selling journals and coasters and intricate hanging art made from repurposed old books. Below is an example from another person’s online store…I couldn’t find the original one that I saw, but you get the idea.

repurposed book cover journal

Here’s a link for more ideas and instructions on how to make your creations from old books you have lying around.

2. Vanilla Beans

Lots of people were selling cheap vanilla beans, some places were 2 beans for $5, I even saw 5 beans for $12 which is really a steal considering they can go for $12 per bean in some places. So I definitely recommend stocking up on vanilla beans when you visit craft fairs. They’re usually hidden in random food stands but you’ll find them.

3. Coconama Gourmet Chocolates

A japanese chef has been spreading the love of gourmet ganache chocolates all over town at basically every craft fair I’ve been to. And let me tell you, his chocolates are divine!

They’re creamy, soft, delicate and bursting with flavour. He takes draws on a lot of his asian roots and creates really unique flavours like lemon basil, cherry blossom, dark chilli but the best by far is matcha. You can tell that the chef uses only the finest ingredients and even the white chocolates were very flavourful. Usually I don’t like white chocolates because they’re just overwhelmingly sweet, but not these ones, these are mostly just full of flavour with just the right amount of sweetness.

I definitely recommend trying out these chocolates or you may find some other delicious gourmet chocolates you might find at your local craft fairs. But if you’d like a taste of these gourmet goodies, you can purchase them online here at www.coconama.com.

4. Essential Oils

Essential oils are generally pretty pricey, if any of you make your own soap or own a nebulizer, you’d know what I’m talking about. In general, a 5 ml bottle costs between 12-30 dollars at places like Saje and Escents. But at craft fairs, a multitude of people will some sell them at a 10-50% discount. You can usually find them at the stands for homemade soaps, lotions, and candles.

For example I bought a 20 ml bottle of 100% lavender oil sourced from France for 15 dollars. It has a nice intense scent, not weak like other lavender oils I’ve sniffed.

I even found a stand devoted solely to selling essential oils. But I do have to warn that you should go into some trusted stores like Saje to have a sniff of the essential oils so you know what you’re looking for. Make sure to check:

1. where they sourced the oils

2. pricing from one oil to the next, different oils should cost differently. It should be a clear flag for fraudulence if the oils all cost the same price.

3. storage bottles – the bottles should be dark coloured to protect from light which damages the oils and reduces their quality.

4. how they smell – You should have some idea of how each oil is supposed to smell, if something smells foul or funky, it’s probably been contaminated or not what it’s advertised to be. Just trust your senses.

5. Crochet Garments

Scarves, hats, mittens, coats, mug cozies galore!

If you’re looking for some hand knit ideas and inspirations craft fairs are chock full of them. I didn’t want to take pictures of any of the wares because I wasn’t planning to buy so it would look really bad if I did. Therefore I’ll show pictures that look like the creations I saw some of which are located at this 9gag post.

but you can find other things like cozies for your mugs and mason jars like these:

Here’s a cup cozy my BFF made for me for Christmas:

My caramel brule latte all warm and fuzzy coated in sheep. Hahaha, I call it sheep because she used real wool, not acrylic.

And there were so many knit items for babies, everything from blankets, to bibs to jackets and booties. If you don’t knit for babies, you will after attending a craft fair haha!

Bonus!

As soon as I saw these, I was instantly intrigued and in love with them:

Giggle

They’re called giggles and they’re a puppet that wraps around your arm. Sort of reminded me of a sloth wanting some cuddles. Feeling lonely? Need a friend? Need a hug? Not to worry, you’ve got all a cuddly friend in a Giggle!

You just put your arm through the puppet, then wrap the arms and legs around you which clip together likely via a Velcro attachment.

You can check them out here.

That’s it for now, so stop reading and go find a craft fair! They often come in the spring, fall and winter.

Kitty Cat Silhouette Christmas Card

I’ve been meaning to upload a few last minute christmas cards that you could whip up really quickly. If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely be trying to pump these out the night before you meet your loved ones and friends so burning the midnight oil well into the night isn’t ideal. But not to worry this next card is so simple to complete, it is literally just choosing a design, some pasting work, add a little bling and you’re done!

For this project I used my silhouette studio with the following design from the design studio: Cats on stack of presents.

I cut it out on shimmery black cardstock to give it some vibrancy for the holiday season. Likewise my scalloped border was punched out using the same shimmery cardstock.

Then I selected a festive background from my stash of Christmas papers and applied the cat silhouette on top and scalloped border on the back. I then wrapped the piece in pink baker’s twine.

Afterwards, I stamped merry christmas with one of my hero arts christmas stamps using clear versamark and heat embossed with fine silver powder. I adhered this sentiment on a back piece of silver cardstock and then used foam dots to apply the sentiment on top of the baker’s twine.

Finally, I applied the whole piece to a 4.5×5 inch cream card using double sided tape.

This card was so simple and easy to make using my Silhouette Cameo and quite frankly a lot of fun since I love cats. I had a great time being able to incorporate some of my favorite pets in a craft project.

But if you don’t like cats or you don’t have this particular sihouette cut out on hand, essentially any silhouette shape can work with a patterned background. Then a sentiment placed on top using foam dots to make it more 3D.

Have fun making this card, it’s great as a last minute card creation!