Happy Little Stampers November Watercolour Challenge - tag

Hello!

I'm here with the Happy Little Stampers November Watercolour Challenge where we have the optional twist of "Tag". I've made a Chrismas tag with a watercolour background and a sparkly silver embossed sentiment and snowflakes. Can you see those tiny bells tied to the ribbon? They actually tinkle. :-)

 I used Stampin' Up! Tin of Tags stamps embossed in silver. Watercolour is Winsor & Newton Cotman.

Our winner for this challenge will receive a $20 coupon to spend at the shop! Check out all the details HERE. I hope you join us in the fun!

Thanks for dropping by to visit!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers October Watercolour Challenge - Gold

Hello!

With the start of October begins the October Watercolour Challenge at Happy Little Stampers! This month's optional twist is GOLD. My card has a rainbow watercolour background, gold embossed peony, and then spritzed liberally with golden Smooch.

I used Altenew Beautiful Day stamps and Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours.

I am betting our golden gallery this month is going to be absolutely fabulous!

Thank you for visiting me!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers September Watercolour Challenge - Spritz

Hello!

It's September! My birthday month! Spring here in Australia! Yippee! I love September!

At Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge this month we have the optional twist of "Spritz" and I have spritzed a gold and brown background for my little robin redbreast.

I used Stampin' Up! Best Birds stamps, Winsor & Newton Cottman watercolours, and gold Smooch. Dies are Mama Elephant.

I know that, as always, our gallery is going to be filled with beautifully watercoloured cards! I can't wait to see what you all make. :-)

Thanks for visiting me!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers August Watercolour Challenge - Bloom

Hello!

I just love flowers and I especially love watercoloured flowers! This month's Watercolour Challenge at Happy Little Stampers has the optional twist of BLOOM, which I just had to use. Can you believe it's already August? This year is flying by too fast.

I used Wplus9 Pretty Peonies stamped using Ranger Archival black and then watercoloured with Derwent Inktense pencils.

The Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge always has an "anything goes" theme, so even if you don't want to use our optional twist you can always join in the fun, so long as you use watercolouring on your card. We have some wonderful cards submitted every month and so many different types of watercolouring. It's wonderful!

Thanks for visiting me! I hope you are inspired to join us this month.

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers July Watercolour Challenge - Blue

Hello!

It's the beginning of a new month and that means that I'm here with my watercolour card for Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge. For July the optional twist is BLUE.

I used HLS Especially For You stamps and coloured using Derwent Inktense pencils.

I just love blue and I know I'm going to love the gallery this month because blue watercolours are the best! :-)

Thanks for visiting me!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - Mask

Hello!

Oh my goodness! I had a failure of my scheduling here on Blogger and this post didn't go live this morning! Oops! Sorry about that everyone. :-)

Welcome to June and welcome to the June Watercolour Challenge over at Happy Little Stampers. This month the optional twist is "Mask", so I did a little masking before colouring.

I used Altenew Adore You stamps and watercoloured with distress inks before doing a bit of splattering. I finished off with a few sequins.

For those of you wondering how my daughter is going at camp... so am I! I received one letter so far, which was written on her first day there a week and a half ago. I'm hoping for another few letters before she leaves in three weeks' time. ;-) Her first letter was happy and she was looking forward to the next few weeks.

Thank-you for visiting. I hope you're inspired to pull out the watercolours and join us in the fun this month!

Michelle

xxx

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - Red

Hello!

Well April flew by in a flash for me! What a busy month!

I'm here to start off the month of May with the Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge. This month we have the optional twist of "red". Red is one of my favourite colours so I cannot wait to explore our gallery. :-)

For my card I did some freehand watercolouring and created some red flowers. The only stamping was the sentiment.

Sentiment is from HLS Doodled Flowers. Watercolours are Winsor & Newton Cotman.

I hope you can join us this month with a little watercolouring of your own!

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers April Watercolour Challenge - Rainbows!

Hello!

A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month! For those of you with pranksters in your life, watch out! It's April 1st! ;-)

Oh what fun we have for you this month at Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge! The optional twist is RAINBOWS! I love rainbows! I cannot wait to see the gallery. :-)

For my card I made a rainbow bunch of balloons coloured with Derwent Inktense pencils. I just the the vibrancy of Inktense colours.

I used Stampin' Up! Balloon Celebrations stamps.

I'm also joining in with Time Out challenge #80 where the inspiration is 'When it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars'

Thank you for visiting and I hope you're inspired to join in the rainbow celebration with us at Happy Little Stampers.

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers March Watercolour Challenge - Smoosh!

Hello!

I can't believe another month has passed by already! It's March! Next thing we'll know it will be Easter!

I'm here with my card for this month's Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge where the optional twist is "smoosh". I might have gone overboard with my smooshing. I heat embossed my flowers and then smooshed away to create my background. I used three different Distress Inks and some iridescent solution for extra sparkle, spraying with some water before the smoosh action began. This was a very wet panel!

I used HLS Doodled Flowers stamps.

Thank-you for coming by to visit. I hope you join us in the watercolour fun this month!

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers February Watercolour Challenge

Hello!

Happy February! Today is the start of the February Watercolour Challenge at Happy Little Stampers. For my card this month I stamped HLS Doodled Flowers, coloured the flowers and leaves with Kuretake Zig Real Brush watercolour markers. I then masked flowers and leaves and went over the top of everything with Prussian Blue Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolour. I held my breath as I unmasked it all and then breathed a sigh of relief! It turned out just as I had hoped. :-) Then I die cut and stamped the sentiment and adhered it all together.

I used HLS Doodled Flowers stamps and Wplus9 Whole Lotta Happy stamp and die. Paper is Arches Hot Press 300gsm smooth watercolour paper (it's beautiful to work with).

I hope you're inspired to join us in the fun! We had so many amazing entries for the January challenge and I know February will be no different!

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Fusion - 3rd Anniversary Challenge

Hello!

It's Fusion's 3rd Anniversary! Yay! To welcome in the New Year and to celebrate we've invited some friends to join us as Guest Designers and my guest is Therese Calvird, a fellow Australian who lives just down the road from me a couple of hours. We haven't met in person yet, but I think 2017 is the year! ;-)

To get started I'll share my card. I did some watercolouring and used both inspiration photo and sketch to create my card.

I used Altenew Beautiful Day stamps and coloured with Inktense pencils.

Next for Therese's gorgeous card.

Isn't that little fellow so cute?! I'm in love! Therese made a video for this one and you really should head over to her blog to check it out!

Thank-you for visiting today! I hope you're inspired to join us. I'm looking forward to seeing the gallery, it's sure to be a beauty with this lovely inspiration.

Michelle
xxx

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - Happy New Year!

Hello!

Happy New Year to you all! I hope that 2017 brings you all things wonderful!

I'm starting off the year with a new design team. I've been an admirer of Kylie and Happy Little Stampers for a while now and so when the opportunity came along to join the HLS design team, I threw my hat into the ring. I was absolutely thrilled when Kylie told me she'd selected me!

This month's Watercolour Challenge has an optional twist to use a stencil. I did not use the optional twist this time around, instead creating a freeform watercolour background using lots of water and then adding salt. I created a bit of a grungey look for my background and my date. I quite like how it turned out!

I used HLS Big Bold Numbers stamps, PTI die, and Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours to create the background.

Thanks so much for coming by to visit me! I hope you join in the watercolour fun with us this month!

Michelle
xxx

Muse 183 - watercolour butterflies

Hello!

I've created a card for the current Muse Card Club Challenge 183 where Tracey has given us the most gorgeous watercoloured beauty to CASE. I was instantly inspired and then it took me several days to find some time to make this card.

I used Happy Little Stampers Butterfly Birthday stamps. The die is Mama Elephant Femme Frames. I coloured using Winsor & Newton watercolours.

This is the beautiful inspiration.

While I was watercolouring AND using Happy Little Stampers stamps, I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring for the watercolour design team at Happy Little Stampers. :-) 

After a very busy week, I've had a relatively quiet week-end, which is a blessing! My kids just started their Spring holidays and it's nice to just hang around at home with them with no homework or sports to worry about. ;-) 

Thanks for coming to visit!

Michelle

xxx

Watercolor for Cardmakers - Intermediate Techniques: Days 5 and 6

Hello!

I've finally found a moment to sit down to photograph and blog my homework from days 5 and 6 of Watercolor for Cardmakers: Intermediate Techniques where we were taught expressive florals. This style can be either easy or challenging, depending on your mental state! As a perfectionist, it was difficult for me to just let the paints do whatever they wanted to do with a tiny bit of direction from me.

My first challenge was to follow Dawn's direction to not worry about wasting my expensive and valuable watercolour paper, haha! She is right, how can we improve if we don't practice? And since the paints behave differently with different papers, you really need to practice on the paper you intend to use.

So I practised, and then I started making little paintings. I have made a card from one of the paintings I made during day 5 practice, and I will make more. I like some of what I created, and the others I learned from.

My first one uses just the natural shape of the brush to create the leaves and flowers. I like this effect. I've seen a few others in the gallery using the same technique but with quite different feels, and all so beautiful!

I love these little flowers. They remind me of crepe myrtle. I'm thinking I'll explore this technique a bit more, to see if I can actually create something that really does look like crepe myrtle. :-)

Oh, how I struggled with these little roses! It's such a loose painting style, and you really don't know what you'll get until you're finished.

This one I did not like at all. But I can see things that worked in it, so it was a good practice.

So after the rose that I didn't like, I decided to try one more time and created this one, which I do like.

I liked it so much I decided to scan it and make it into a card. (I'm not happy with my stamping of the sentiment, but since it is a scanned copy, I can just fix it later with another print.)

I then moved onto day 6 homework. First I tried Sanketi's lessons. I've successfully used Sanketi's techniques previously, but this time I really found it challenging. I love her style and I always learn something when I watch her videos. :-)

So after that, and feeling frustrated I gave myself a day of rest. I returned to the expressive florals with two ideas. The first was that I wanted to experiment with what happens when I use less water and a smaller brush. I was pleasantly surprised! I can see some potential in this style for me.

Then I tried to create some cosmos with wet flowers and drier leaves and stems. I played around with my greens to create some variation, and I really gave it a good splatter!

So, that's where I'm up to. I've loved these classes so much. I knew that I would learn from Dawn and my admiration for her has just increased over this class.

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle
xxx

Fusion - Paper Hearts

Hello!

For Fusion Card Challenge I am using one of my watercolour pieces created during Online Card Classes Watercolor for Cardmakers: Intermediate Techniques. I couldn't resist when I saw the inspiration, watercolour was the perfect choice!

To create this card, I traced around my heart dies to make the shapes and then watercoloured. For my perfectionist inner critic, it was really difficult to have my hearts imperfect, but at the same time, it's the imperfection that I really like in this card. Yes, I'm a little bit crazy. ;-)

How cool is this inspiration photo and sketch? Perfect for Valentine's cards!

WARNING: This bit is me moaning about the heat.
Speaking of cool, I'm super-envious of all of those snow photos I'm seeing from the northern hemisphere! Here in Brisbane we've had over a week of high temperatures with high humidity. The ceiling fans do nothing but move the hot, moist air around. I can't sleep. I feel physically ill from the heat and humidity. It's driving me crazy. Everything is wet! I keep hoping we'll get a giant thunderstorm that will blow in a cool change. I keep seeing the thunderstorms heading off in the distance - flashing lightning, giant clouds, and nothing for us! I whinge every time the weather gets like this. I'm not a fan of hot Summers, give me cold Winters any day! (We don't get those here, the coldest we get in Winter is just below 0 degrees celcius, definitely no snow.) Maybe soon we'll get those much needed rain storms to take away the heat, then I can cheer up! ;-)

Thanks for visiting! I hope you're inspired to join us at Fusion Challenge. I'll be looking for you in the gallery.

Michelle
xxx

Watercolor for Cardmakers - Intermediate Techniques: Day 3

Hello!

Day 3 of Watercolor for Cardmakers: Intermediate Techniques was challenging! I haven't made any cards from my work yet, but I did create a postcard for my daughter from the scanned image of one of them.

I worked on two lessons at once.

Negative painting is about creating a background that brings your images to the front. I need a bit more practice on this one, but it was a really interesting process to play with.

I drew the heart outlines around a die because I had no heart outline stamps. Halfway through the process I lost my pencil lines, so I just used my imagination to keep the hearts in the picture. ;-)

Lifting is about lifting paint to leave highlights. One of the hardest things for me in watercolour is the inability to ADD highlights. As far as I can tell, you need to either leave the highlights from the beginning, or use lifting to remove some of the colour. VERY challenging for me, haha! For my first attempt I used Jane's Doodles Pretty Peonies stamp for the main flower. Again, I lost the stamped image partway through my painting, so I did my best without it. I really don't like the leaves and stems in this first effort, but as with all of these lessons, the more mistakes I make, the more I learn. I do like my freehand buds. :-)

For my second attempt, I drew my main rose (which looked so much better in pencil!). When I started lifting, I rounded the petals more than I wanted, but the lifting worked, so I can't complain. I'm getting there. Next time I want my ruffled petals AND lifting that works. I'm happier with the leaves and stems this time. I also made some mistakes that I successfully fixed, so I'm excited!

By this time I was running late with lessons, so I have paused in my day 3 practice so that I can move on. 

I printed the heart watercolour onto photo paper for my daughter. On glossy photo paper, it glows.

I'm running out of time for class homework. I'm back to work tomorrow (I had last week off to settle the kids into school), which means I'm back to night time crafting, which is rather difficult with my (getting old) eyes and limited time to allow watercolouring to dry. I hope to get some more done today, so that I just have fun practising to do this week.

Thanks for visiting!

Michelle

xxx

Watercolor for Cardmakers - Intermediate Techniques: Day 2

Hello!

I'm only halfway through my homework for Day 2 of Watercolour for Cardmakers: Intermediate Techniques but I need to move onto Day 3 (because there's even more exciting things to learn there!). I'll go back to finishing Day 2 because I am very much still exploring the lessons.

So on day 2, I learned how to make cornflowers and promptly applied the lesson to create poppies instead. My daughter requested that I go back and make cornflowers for her, haha!

I also learned how to make a brush stroke rose from Jennifer Rzasa. In that lesson, she also pointed out that scanning our artwork and printing onto cardstock means that we can use our art multiple times. I have no idea why I never thought of this before, but it is BRILLIANT! I'm so excited!

This first rose pretty much copied Jen's example. My second rose was a challenge to myself to attempt to create two roses with one in front of the other. This is one of my challenges when drawing or painting flowers - I struggle to layer them up - so I'm working on it.

The cards are made using the scanned images of my paintings. I'm really happy how they turned out.

Here are the cards beside the original watercolours.

I still have two lessons to apply from day 2. I have one halfway made but I'm stuck on ideas to make a card. The other technique I am yet to try, but I will. ;-)

Thank-you for dropping by to visit me!

Michelle
xxx