Bird Wreath Blessings with The Greetery

 

As I’m writing this, I’m looking out at frost covered branches from days of fog we’ve had.  It’s spectacular and sparkly, and one of the reasons I love Winter.  But, if I had to choose, I think Spring is my favourite!  This design using The Greetery goodies and Stamp Simply feels just like spring to me!  

There’s some lovely components that went into this design, that I originally created for some missionaries that were returning home after many decades of service, but I chose a different card, and just got around to finishing this one up.  To create the beautiful wreath I used The Greetery’s beautiful Floral Arches Stamp and Stencil, and the coordinating die.  Using Disress Oxide inks for the colour for the flowers and leaves.  The sweet goldfinch was created with The Greetery’s Robin and Wren Stamp set and Coordinating Die.  And he looks perfect perched in the flowers!

The sentiment is from a Stamp Simply set called Pastor and Ministry Appreciation Scripture. And I’ve added some background using a basketweave stencil for extra texture and pop of colour.  

It makes a lovely encouragement for someone who is making a difference!  

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Bird Wreath Blessings with The Greetery

Leaves All Around with The Greetery

 

Have the leaves begun to turn in your part of the world yet? That is, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, like I am.  We’re just starting to see some tinges of yellow on the leaves, which is always a beautiful stage.  

Today I’m bringing you some lovely leaves from The Greetery’s Leaves All Around stencil and die set,  (on sale right now!), with two cards.    

This first design is a Birthday one that has lots of vibrant colour.  My favourite!  

I started by die cutting and stenciling up this beautiful leaf frame with Distress Oxide inks (Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feathers).  I find that this is one design that it’s better to cut it from the die first so that your stencilling fits perfectly inside.  I also created a background for the design with other Distress Oxide inks, (Abandoned Coral and Seedless Preserves), splashing on some water and white ink splatters.  

To accent I added another The Greetery die, Botanicuts Hollyhocks which was sponged with softer versions of the background ink.   I love the 3D layered effect!  The card is layered together with the leaves popped up using foam squares.  I’ve added some clear holeless sequins in the background and the sentiment die is a retired one from The Cat’s Pajamas.  

Now a cool version with these products:  

For this design I used a similar palette for the leaves, but sponged Peacock Feathers in the background and a Bible Verse sentiment from Stamp Simply’s set Hope.  

I added a few extra leaves from the dies for the top of the card, and the sentiment, and overall kept the layers flat with the exception of that enamel dot.  These leaves are such a great way to frame up a great stamped sentiment or die.  

Appreciate you popping by today!  Enjoy the autumn (or spring) leaves, wherever you are!  

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Leaves All Around with The Greetery

Watercolour Hope Series - Day 1

 

It seems with events around the world we could use a good infusion of hope.  So, this week I’m going to showcase some of the watercolour wreaths I painted last year that I’ve made into cards, pairing them with some Stamp Simply Scripture stamps.  

Today I’m starting with this pretty olive wreath I painted using Daniel Smith Watercolours paired with the Hope stamp set.  Olive leaves have a beautiful long wispy style and vary from silvery green to lighter green.  

This Scripture passage works so perfectly with the theme of hope and olives - as it’s the crushing of olives that produces the oil.  So even in the midst of suffering or affliction, God can be producing something beautiful, useful, fragrant, and hopeful.  So much beautiful symbolism.  Like many crafters around the globe our prayers are fervant for people in Ukraine. 

Hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for another Watercolour wreath.  

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Watercolour Hope Series - Day 1

Lemons and Rest Watercolour Wreath

 

Hello!  If you follow me on Instagram (ChristineCreationsArt) you’ll have heard that I’m working through a project this season called the #100DayProject, where you pick some type of art that you’d like to work on for a period of 100 days.  I decided to work on some freehand watercolour wreaths.  So, today’s design is one I painted last week and then put a pretty Bible verse on it to complete a card.  

Lemons are such a cheerful fruit!  I painted these with Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolours on Arches Cold Pressed Watercolour paper.  

The lovely verse is from Stamp Simply’s set Hope.  It’s full of lovely Scripture around the hope theme.  

To complete the design I added some tiny check gingham paper and a bit of baker’s twine.  Such a lovely invitation to find rest.  

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Lemons and Rest Watercolour Wreath

Watercolor Hope Wreath Giveaway

Happy Saturday Everyone!  

Today I have a sweet little giveaway for you with love from my hand.  I’ve been working on my freehand watercolouring this year, I even joined the #100DayProject (on my Instagram Art account christinecreationsart ) to work on a series of watercolour wreaths for 100 days, so I thought I’d do a giveaway showcasing them today.  I have two wreaths to show you today for the Giveaway.  

This pretty wreath combines some of my favourite florals and an encouraging hand painted sentiment that focusses on Hope. I love the idea of hope opening up like a flower.  

6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches in size, painted with Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors on 300 lb Cold Pressed watercolour paper.  Its ready for a little frame or propped up on a mini easel like this one was.  

Next is a more full and luscious wreath.   

This design has much more layering of colour and leaves and showcases a lovely stamped sentiment from Stamp Simply’s Hope set.  It reads, "Be Joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."  Romans 12:12

This wreath is also 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inch size and painted with Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolours on 300 lb Cold Pressed Paper.  

To Enter: All you need to do is comment on this post and tell me some of your favourite colour combinations.  One entry per person.  I’ll choose a winner by next Saturday (February 13) and if you’re chosen, you can pick which wreath you’d like.  Please leave your email in the comments so I can contact you to arrange mailing.  

WINNER OF THE TCP Grassy Patches Giveaway:  

Random.org picked:  

sharon g said...

I would just love to win this grass die. I would give it a good home, and take it out to play often :)

February 2, 2021 at 8:55 PM

Sharon I’ll send you a note to collect your prize!  

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Watercolor Hope Wreath Giveaway

Dainty Heart Wreath Watercolour

 

Valentine’s is just 12 days away, that really snuck up on me.  How about you?  This season to grow a component of my art, I decided to join in on the #100DayProject and work on some watercolouring over 100 days.  I decided to work around the theme of wreaths.  There’s something very lovely about a wreath, and it helps me work on my freehand watercolouring.  Sometimes I’m inspired by other people’s creations and saw a dainty heart-shaped wreath with leaves and it inspired me for this design.  

I started by making an twig/branch outline with DS Burnt Sienna, on 300 lb cold pressed watercolor paper and added in all the little leaves around the heart with DS Sap Green.  Then I added the tiny hearts in DS Pyrrol Red.  I love the asymmetry of the heart, I think it creates so much more interest.  

As final touch I stamped the sentiment from Stamp Simply’s set Love, in Memento Ink and then painted within the stamped lines with Pyrrol Red, adding a little heart in the middle.  It makes for a very simple yet classy design.  

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Dainty Heart Wreath Watercolour

Watercolour Wreath Series - Three

Hello!  I’ve been doing a bit more watercolouring this week to continue my series of original art wreaths.  The first two of the series are Here and Here.  I’m trying to branch out  - so to speak - with some different styles of flowers and improve my brushstrokes.  This is such new territory for me, because whenever I’ve done original art in the past, I always sketch first.  Here, I’m starting just with brush and paint.  So...sometimes I have more success than others!  I’m also trying to develop my own style, and I think that takes a long time to figure out. So, I’ll continue to call these experiments :)!  Happy ones, because I’m enjoying myself, but still works in progress.  

Today I’ll start with this fun one that is supposed to be a loose interpretation of sunny ranunculus blooms.  I think that’s one unique thing about watercolour, it can be very detailed and precise as a medium, but it's often an equally successful medium by its suggestion of shape, with brushstroke and colour.  Your eye fills in the details and reads it as (hopefully) what the artist intends.  That said, my youngest son thought they were woodcuts!  (ha!) Obviously I still have a ways to go!  

All of these cards today are painted with Daniel Smith Watercolours.  This one above in Quinachridone Gold, Quinachridone Coral, Phthalo Turquoise, Hookers Green, Hansa Medium Yellow and Cobolt Blue.

The sentiment is Stamp Simply’s lovely set,  Encouragement Combo.

I love how these irises turned out, but they started out as a completely different flower!  But the more I looked at them, the more I saw iris, so that’s the direction I went.  I really wish I would have tipped that bottom iris a bit to the left so it followed the curve of the circle better, but once the paint is down, it’s down.  This design also uses the above Phthalo Turquoise, Hansa Yellow and Hookers Green, and adds Quinachridone Rose to mix with Cobolt Blue to create the pretty purples.  

 The sentiment is from Stamp Simply’s set Fear Not.

Lastly for today, I created some more tiny roses and greenery for this one.  I’m learning to start more gradually with softer colours and more washes rather than bold colour right up front.  In that way, it’s the opposite from Copics where you blend out your colour, watercolour is soft washes that build colour in layers.  Completely different mindset for my brain!  

This sentiment is also created with Stamp Simply’s set, Encouragement Combo.

And, all of these designs are painted on Strathmore Cold Pressed 140 lb paper.  It’s nice and sturdy for the card designs.  Heavy enough to even be used as card weight.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Watercolour Wreath Series - Three

Watercolor Wreath Series - Two

Hello there!  I’m back with the series of original watercolor wreath artwork I’ve been working on.  The first post is HERE in case you want to catch up.  For this trio I used the same 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 inch size of card, Strathmore watercolor paper, and Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors.  

This first card does have the look of Christmas berries, but I think the pop of lime green could make it work for any season.  I’ve stamped the Bible Verse from Stamp Simply’s Words of Encouragement set.  

This card shows off a bit more delicate feel with tiny leaves, pointed petal open blossoms and a sweet palette of colours.  

I did some splattering on this one and the Bible verse is from Stamp Simply, Pastor and Minister Appreciation Scripture Sentiments.  

This last one is all cool blues and greens with heart shaped blossoms and simple lines.  

It’s really fun to play with different types of brush strokes to get unique flower and leaf looks!  

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Watercolor Wreath Series - Two

Watercolour Wreath Original Art Series

Hello!  In the past few weeks I’ve been working on original art of my own using watercolours, so I thought I’d show you them over the next month, a few at a time.  I’ve wanted to do some smaller projects with watercolour to work on my brush strokes and mark-making with the paint, as well as the bleeding between colours.  In the future, when I have more practise and develop more skill,  I’d like to move on to bigger sizes and do my own lettering of Scripture, but for now, these are 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 size cards, and make use of the lovely Scripture stamps from Stamp Simply.  For all of these designs I used Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolours, and Stamp Simply’s Words of Encouragement, for the Scripture verses.  

I’m going to keep all of the cards really simple and not do any embellishing so that the watercolouring will be the focus.  This one is still my favourite of all I’ve done so far.  I like how delicate the wreath looks, it’s light an airy, and I love the colour blend on the blooms.  

Next up, one of our favourite Scripture passages with some viney and delicate blooms, almost like a grapevine hyacinth.  These type of blooms are fun to colour because they’re just dots of a tiny #2 brush.  

And finally, some pretty roses, with some deeper greens on the greenery, and a much fuller wreath.  Isn’t the script on the verses lovely?  Sharon has some really nice Scripture stamps, so I’ve added a few to my collection.  

It’s so fun to develop my own style and see my own art come to life on the page.  It’s been a long time in coming!  Join me again next week for more in this series!  

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Watercolour Wreath Original Art Series

Mountain Coffee Thank You Set

Today is a day full of projects for me. I have a number of thank you items to make, a baby shower gift to complete, and cupcakes to bake for our family party for our 5 year old. We'll see how much I can get done in one day....I always think I can complete more than I usually am able to, nothing has gone like I thought it would this morning! A slow computer, programs not working, a call from my sister-in-law in the States.... Yikes still so much to do!

Here's one of the projects already complete. A family in our church has been so helpful to us these past few months so this is a thank you for them. In April of this year my husband was playing church league softball, and doing a routine play when his quadricep muscle tore off of his knee, it meant hospital time, surgery and 8 weeks with no weight on his right leg. Never underestimate your right leg! He couldn't drive for 8 weeks, couldn't even lift his leg on his own for a number of weeks, so a lot of family *stuff* fell to me. As our lawn grew higher and higher that spring I knew I *could* cut it myself, but with 3 kids and all the other stuff I was doing it was just another thing on the list. People began coming to help us with the lawn, but this one family just kept coming even without asking and also took care of it while we were on vacation. A very kind blessing.

So, we found this great coffee in Canmore called Kicking Horse, Three Sisters Blend (like the Three Sisters Mountains in Canmore). Cool packaging hey?

So I dug out my paper and found that Pacific Point was the perfect match. Sharon Johnson over at No Time to Stamp runs a Stamp Simply challenge each week and this weeks challenge is to use your basic stamp as focal image and background. This is a set from Flourishes designed by Sharon...and I've NEVER had a chance to use...so though it's not a perfect one stamp in the image and backgroud...the flourish I used in the coffee set is used as the background in the tag and card.

Here on the tag I used the flourish on the paper pieced cup and background, added pretty new paper from SU called Urban Garden, used my new large oval punch, pretty ribbon and it's a pretty but simple tag for the coffee. Sentiment is hand written with a white gel pen.

I really like how the card turned out. Lime green really is my favourite color, and I like the color contrasts and classy simplicity to the card. Cup and saucer are paper pieced and popped up, ribbon is from my local stamp store but by the yard so I'm not sure of the manufacturer, some scallops and simple brads and sentiment...a simple but lovely Bold Coffee Card.

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures of my other projects that I (hopefully :) ) completed!

Recipe: Stamps: Flourishes - Coffee Time, Sentiment from Siberian Iris; Paper: Pacific Point, Urban Garden DSP, Basic Black; Ink: Black Stazon, Pacific Point; Accessories: Ribbon (by the yard), Black Brads, Scallop Edge Punch, Large Oval Punch, White Gel Pen, Dimensionals.

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Mountain Coffee Thank You Set