No-Line Watercolour Poppies

 

Hello out there!  I’ve been dreaming of spring, since the cold snap we had, with the temperatures now warming up.  I’m already thinking through all of my hopes and dreams for the flower gardens and vegetable gardens this spring and can’t wait till that can happen.  So this week I’m in flower mode with a dreamy design from A Day For Daisies called Fairy Flowers.  I wanted to do some watercolouring of these lovely petals and seed pods, so I printed it quite light on watercolour paper and had fun.  

With no line watercolouring you really have to work section by section to make sure you don’t lose the lines, and then work in layers after each dries to get your definition.  Starting with less pigment and adding stronger pigment as the details come to life.  I always make sure to have the original image close by too so if I get lost I can always refer back to it.  

I paired the design with some new papers called Echo Park Plant Lady because they had these great blue and orange watercolour style sheets.  Blue is such a perfect pairing for orange because of it being a contrasting colour.  

A pretty sentiment from Power Poppy and a trio of enamel dots pull it all together.  

Thanks for stopping by!

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No-Line Watercolour Poppies

Reading Time

This sweet scene is such a reminder for me of all the reading we did with our kids.  There was one book our daughter wanted read to her at least 10 x a day when she was small.  It was called “Meet My Buddy”, but you know what, it all paid off, she was reading on her own without us really teaching her, before Kindergarten started, and now she is going to be a teacher after she graduates from University this spring.  I love how reading transports you to other times, other places, with unique characters, and what a gift that is to our kids.   I think this image is pretty precious, it's from ADFD and it’ s called Book Time.  I love the mom’s messy bun and the cute pigtails on the daughter.  Very fun to colour too. 

Printed onto XPress it Blending card stock, and then coloured with Copics in this fun colour palette that’s one of my favourites.  

I used some pretty polka-dotted paper, created stripes in the blanket they’re laying on, and then added some polka-dots onto the little girls shirt with a white gel pen.  A bit of grossgrain ribbon, some tiny scallops and enamel dots complete it.  

Hope today is the perfect adventure for you!  

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Reading Time

Kitty Cuddles

Sometimes it's the simple things that are the sweetest.  I found an old image from ADFD called Boy Kitty that I thought would make a sweet little design.  I love how toddlers lead with their chubby bellies when they walk.  It always makes me smile, as adults that never looks good, but on babies?  It’s all cuteness.  Something about this little image reminds me of that.  He just looks cute with his mussed up hair, snuggling that kitty.  

It’s coloured up with Copics, a simple sentiment from SU I believe, and then the patterned paper does most of the work to tie it all together (also SU from my stash).  

A wee bit of pennants, hanging from a corduroy button and twine make it complete.  

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Kitty Cuddles

Making Poppies Pop

In November I had my annual card sale, and one of my friends couldn’t make it, but she asked if I could make her a red poppy card. She LOVES poppies.  She has many pictures of them in her home, she has a gorgeous grey cape she wears that has a huge red poppy up on the shoulder.  So, I pulled out my pretty digital set called Vintage Poppy Cluster from A Day for Daisies to create something for her.  

It’s such a great image for colouring with all those wide open spaces.  One thing I did to really give the depth and pop to the colouring was to add some cool greys in the shadows of the red petals to really increase the depth of colour.  If the shading gets too dark, you just run one of your lighter reds over top to tie it in to the main colouring better.  As you can see I left some areas really light so there would be a lot of contrast between light and dark.  It also helps your petals look really papery-thin.  

Then to also help the image pop I added a pointillism background with different tones of gray to really make the red feel center stage.  

A little organdy ribbon bow adds a bit of drama, and I shot my heat gun on it for just a few seconds to wrinkle the ribbon a bit more, and shrink it slightly.  

The sentiment is embossed on a nice dark grey textured card stock to really anchor or ground the image.  

Back tomorrow with a Power Poppy Friday, see you then!  

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Making Poppies Pop

Into the Mess

With Christmas just days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about the first Christmas and the magnitude of Jesus being born into our messy world;  a stable, a manger, the smell, the cold, the vulnerable.  There was no neat and tidy about the first Christmas. 

Just yesterday, we heard the news of the sudden passing of a friend, others we know faced an uncertain outcome after surgery for their child, my father-in-law has been moved into a dementia unit in a home and after 63 years of marriage, my in-laws are not in the same place, there’s a lot of adjustment for all of us as we watch the long goodbye of Alzheimers.  The headlines are full of difficult news;  yet I will choose to celebrate Christmas once more.  Not because all is joyful, but because I don’t have to face the complexities of life all alone.  Jesus enters my mess, and I can experience peace.  I hope that’s an encouragement for whatever mess - or joy is in front of you today!

This lovely image is from A Day for Daisies and its called A Sign I Give.  I love the details in all the folds of the fabric and the beautiful open spaces to add colour.  

I placed the manger scene all on a white card base with a lot of sparkle.  I used a stencil and embossing paste sprinkled (when wet) with glitter to get a very shimmery effect.  So much so that you can see speckles of glitter on the image too.  

I added some scalloped border, some satin ribbon and some sparkly curly ribbon to finish it off.  

Thanks for stopping by friends!  

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Into the Mess

A Garden Fairy

It’s a pretty little garden fairy today to kick off The Daily Marker’s 30 Day Colouring Challenge.  I coloured her up just for fun in this pretty dress, giving it an ombre feel, perfect for this week’s ADFD Challenge.  She’s called Fairy Flower Waiting from A Day for Daisies.  When I found this older pack of paper in my stash (Authentique Celebrate), I thought the patterns and florals would pair with her beautifully.  Isn’t it a fun colour combination?  I really like the corally-red, teal and black.  

I have some pretty little petal sequins from Simon Says to accent (they’re so dainty!) and then I added some baker’s twine to finish it off.  

The sentiments are from Power Poppy’s Simply Camellias, and here’s the Copics I used below.  

I’ll see how much colouring I get done this month, but it’s always fun to play along in the challenge no matter how much you can do, jump on in!   

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A Garden Fairy

Best of 2015 - Part 1

Hello Friends!  I’ve collected up my favourite creations of 2015 to recap for you again this year.  I realized as I looked at my posts that this was a year I didn’t have nearly as much time to create as in other years.  Working almost full-time for a good portion of the year really changed my creative time.  I still feel so grateful for the chance to colour and put cards together whenever I can, and I so appreciate you coming by to visit and your kind comments!  I hope to have a more regular blogging schedule in the year ahead.  

January

Powerful Poppies

Ocean Prayers

February

Poppy Birthday 

March

Can We Be Friends?

Need Space?

Dragon Baby

April

Birthday Bunny

Dreamy Galaxy

Bloom

May

Amazing Azaleas

June

Go Wild

Pencilled Poppies

Air Time

Back tomorrow for round two!  

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Best of 2015 - Part 1

Precious One

Good Monday morning to all of you!  How was your Christmas time?  Ours was filled with family and food and lots to enjoy and appreciate.  I love watching my “big kids” at Christmas learn what it’s like to be excited to GIVE presents not just receive them.  And I also love seeing my little niece and nephew and their excitement for their presents too.  Best of both worlds.

Today I thought I’d start out with a baby design.  I had a few minutes of colouring time while the kids were enjoying their Christmas presents yesterday and made this sweet little baby girl design.

This digi image from A Day for Daisies is called Under the Stars.  It’s such a sweet little design of a baby in a hammock under the moon and stars.  I gave it some colouring with Copics and cut it out with the feeling of an arched window.  All you need to do is cut it as a rectangle, and then only run part of your stitched circle die so only the top portion of the die cuts.  I echoed that feel in the overall card shape as well.  

Those blossoms in the image inspired me to pick the blossomy white ribbon to accent and then some sparkly star rhinestones.  

The sentiment is from an old SU set, Cute Converse.  I like it for the sweet little sized sayings.  I wanted the little bit of yellow in a circle to mimic the moon.  

Here’s the Copics I used.  Be back this week again.  I’ll have new things and also my year end wrap up of my favourite cards from 2015!  

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Precious One

Poppy Love

I have a friend who just LOVES poppies, she really loves their simplicity and vibrant colour.  That describes her personality as well.  She shines a simple vibrance in life too.  I also love her because she has a laugh as big as mine :).  She asked if I could make her a poppy card, so I worked on this one with A Day for Daisies  - Fairy Flowers just for her.  A simple design with the colouring taking center stage.  

Some trims and enamel dots finish it off.  

Thanks for visiting!  

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Poppy Love

Mermaid Hello

Hello to you!  

I’m a little sad.  It’s my last day at A Day for Daisies today.  I just love these images that Tammy illustrates for us and it’s been fun because it stretches me in a different way artistically....but I just haven’t been able to keep up with everything in life.  Working full time these last months has made all my free moments pretty rare and precious, and I don’t want to miss important time with my family, so I had to pull back a little.   Let’s just say though that you’ll still see ADFD things from me when I have time, and these girls are stellar so keep tabs on this sweet little company!  

Today I’m playing with this adorable little mermaid image called Dreams.  What fun to colour up that water with a lot of different blue/greens in my Copics.  Because I went for some distinct contrasts in the colours, I softened all the transitions between colours with some pointillism dots, and it adds to that feeling of waterspray.  The paper was perfect with that wavy theme and it’s from an older pack of Glitz papers.  I accented the waves with a TCP Wavy Stitched border as well.  

The sentiment is an older Flourishes one.  You can also see that I added some shimmery pen dots too to accent the waves and the little mermaid as well. 

Here’s the Copics I used.  

Stop by and visit these lovely ladies to see what they have to show off for you today....

Arielle

Broni

Christine (you are here)

Juliana

Hugs girls!  I’ll miss creating with you!  

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Mermaid Hello

Puddles and Rainbows

Hi again!  Today I have two posts, so if you’re looking for Power Poppy just scroll down.  

With this fun card I hope to bring cheer to your rainy day!  It’s a fun image from A Day for Daisies called New Umbrella, that we’re showcasing from the It’s a New Day Collection.  And we’re ushering in a new challenge for the next 2 weeks - to Use Paper-Piecing!  

It was great fun to give this umbrella and the raincoat and boots some fun paper pieced pattern.  

I always begin by colouring first (Copics), and then adding the paper piecing overtop.  

The cute clouds are from The Cat’s Pajams and I added some pretty scallops along the bottom with a Spellbinders Die.  

The sentiment is from Power Poppy’s Poppy set and I thought it was perfect for the design, and the pretty papers are older ones I had in my stash MME - Oxford Lane.  

Pop by and see what the ADFD gang has in store for you today, then join us in the Paper Piecing challenge...

Arielle

Broni

Christine (you are here)

Juliana

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Puddles and Rainbows

Barnyard Special

Hi again friends!  If you’re looking for my Power Poppy post just scroll down please :)

I just have to say....if you’re going to go in a barnyard theme, you might as well go big or go home!  I really went all out on this country-fied rooster from A Day For Daisies.  His name is Mr. Rooster, and he’s pretty spiffy in his overalls, bringing flowers to his favourite  little hen.  I found these fun papers from Simple Stories that I had in my stash, I think they were called Summer Stories, and they’re a big mix of country feeling patterns.  

I added some washi tape, buttons and gingham ribbon to take it over the top country.  Aren’t roosters so cool to colour?  You really can get a fun mix of colours in there especially in the black areas....I’ve got some blue and green in there to give it a cool effect and feathers are really easy to colour with flicks of your marker.  

Here’s a closeup where you can see his paper pieced blue jean overalls.  

Take a peek at what the team has to show off...and be sure you enter in our CASE a Designer Challenge from last week, you have one week left!  

Broni

Christine (you are here)

Juliana

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Barnyard Special

Garden Chair

Hello again friends!  I’m back today with something new from A Day For Daisies....if you’re looking for my Power Poppy new release post, please just scroll down :)

We have a new round of images and a new challenge this week at A Day For Daisies....the pretty design I got to play with is called Garden Chair Gathering.  Isn’t it pretty?  I thought, what would be more garden like that some pretty floral paper for the chair, so I paper pieced the seat and back of the chair with this gorgoeus floral and then colored in the little birds with Copics.  

Now the challenge this week at ADFD is a fun one, YOU get to case the Design Team....so you can take a card that one of us has created this week and CASE it for the challenge.  It’s a 2 week challenge so I hope you can join in on the fun!  

I kept the accents simple with some sewing and sponging on the main image, prety antique looking buttons and some twine, plus a little touch of lovely cotton lace.  

Pop on over and see the rest of the Design Team and then jump in and do some CASE-ing!

Arielle

Broni

Christine (you are here)

Juliana

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Garden Chair

The Good Life

I really love birdhouses and today at A Day for Daisies we’re showing off some lovely Bird Watching designs that will tickle your birdie feathers.  They all have a dreamy sort of quality.  

As I was rifling through my papers the other day I found this lovely sheet from a 12 x 12 kit I bought from Echo Park and I just love the pretty floral pattern so that’s how this all came together.  I wanted to fill up the whole sheet with the floral, sewing it down, and then giving the design some of the colours from the sheet with Copics.  

For the sentiment I took a strip from one of the sheets of designer paper in the pack and cut it into flags for hte sentiment and then accented with clear sequins and glittery enamel dots.  

Here’s the Copics I used.  

Here’s the rest of the ADFD Team today....

Arielle

Broni

Christine (you are here)

Juliana

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The Good Life