Another Watercolor with Art Impressions

 Here's the other card I put together using a watercolored panel made with Art Impressions stamps and Distress Ink.  I used another sheet from the Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper 6x6 pad with the same design as yesterday's card, only this time in a monotone yellow color. 

 

 

Here's a shot of yesterday and today's cards together:

More Watercoloring with Art Impressions

I have two panels of watercolors that I did a bit back that were sitting on my craft room desk for a long time.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them.  Then I was putting away a few things in my craft room when I saw the Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper 6x6 pad with a snippet of this cute floral paper on the cover and decided it was the perfect paper for those watercolors.  The watercolor panels were done with stamps from Art Impressions and Distress Ink Markers.  It's a totally fun way to watercolor, even if, like me, you don't have any artistic talent.

Looking for My Mojo

I just don't get it.  I have the whole day to myself because hubby has catering to do today.  I've been looking forward all week to a whole day to play in my craft room without feeling guilty about taking away from time we could spend together.  Now that it's here, apparently my mojo took the day off just when I had planned to make a handful of cards to have ready to encourage my friend as she goes through her upcoming surgery and chemo and reconstruction.  I could be in my craft room, but I've been folding clothes, changing sheets on the bed, trying to fix a slow drain...  When cleaning the house appeals more than playing with paper, something is wrong.  Does this ever happen to you?  If so, what do you do about it? 

I've got my usual tricks:  reading blogs, watching YouTube videos, surfing Pinterest and remaking something someone else has done.  But I think my favorite is shopping.  I just love shopping for new supplies (as evidenced by my craft room), but there's a pretty limited selection here in town so I'm forced to look online for a lot of my supplies. So today, when I couldn't really find my mojo, I noticed that Simon Says Stamp was running a 20% off sale on their branded products (use code "Twenty" through 11:59 EST on 6/8). I found some things I like and have wanted for a while, put them in my cart, got all the way to the checkout and stopped.  I still don't know why.  I know that each of things I picked out are things I will love to play with and am excited to play with, but I just stopped.  So weird.

But, maybe just the act of shopping did the trick.  I started playing with my Art Impression watercolor stamps and Distress Markers.  Just as I finished a panel, I heard the buzz of the dryer.  So I set the panel aside and headed off to fold some more laundry. When I got back, I discovered that I must have set the panel on a slight angle because some of the water ran and pooled, ruining part of the design.  Grrrrrr.....  After thinking about tossing the whole thing, I decided I would try to save it by covering the puddled ink with a banner with a sentiment stamped from the Inkadinkado All Occasions set on some watercolor paper.  I then matted it with a pop of red and then used a pre-made card base in a swirl pattern.  I'm not sure it's totally successful, but maybe it will grow on me and hopefully my mojo will return.

Another Art Impression Watercolor Sympathy Card

I really love these new Art Impression stamps for water coloring.  They are so much fun to play with using my Distress Markers even if it's a sympathy card.  For this one, I decided to just do a one layer card with a simple sentiment from the Sympathy4you set from the Stamps of Life. 

My First Attempt with Art Impressions

This last weekend I attended CKC in Portland for the sixth year in a row.  It's changed a bit since I first started, but one thing that never changes is the inspiration I find there.  I happened upon a booth in the vendor fair for Art Impressions.  I remembered that I had watched Kristina Werner make the cutest cat card using their stamps, so I just had to check them out.  They had some of the cutest whimsical stamps, but then I saw the most amazing demonstration of their watercolor stamps.  I stood there for the longest time with another group of crafters watching the owner, Bonnie Krebs, create such beautiful scenes with just a handful of stamps, markers, a little water, a brush and some watercolor paper.  I knew immediately I was going to have to try it myself.

I picked out a few stamps that I thought would be basic enough to get started but also versatile enough to let me be creative.  As I was purchasing my new stamps, I struck up a conversation with the owner's husband and learned that they live not to far from me and my favorite local art store, Runaway Arts and Crafts carries their products - no wonder the name was so familiar.  I'm sure I've walked by their stamps in that store a ton of times and never gave them a thought because I simply didn't know how to use them. 

So tonight, I pulled them out because I thought they may do well for the sympathy card I need to make for a co-worker.  I was so surprised how fun, easy and FAST it was to make the potted plant on this card.  I watched their You Tube video and then just followed the easy steps to make my own version.  Then it was just add a background with Fancy Pants paper from the 6x6 pad called Park Bench and a little ribbon.