Watercolor Series Video - Backgrounds

 

The final video in the watercolor series is up. In this video, I create two cards with watercolors used on embossed resist backgrounds. These impactful backgrounds are easy to do.  With watercolors, you can create an endless number of colors.  I stick to the palette in this video but you can always combine colors to get what you want.  It would have been easy for me to get the purple I was missing by just mixing some red and blue in a dish.  It's much harder to color mix with stamp inks.

I've enjoyed this series and I hope you have as well. Thanks for watching!

Coloring stamped images with Watercolors

In my quest to pare down my craft supplies, I assessed all the things I have to color with.  Markers, colored pencils, watercolor crayons, inks and blender pens.  So many things and honestly, coloring isn't really my favorite thing to do.  So why do I have all this stuff?!

I've also discovered that I can color with the same medium that takes up little space and is great for so many other things - watercolors. In the video, I share some comparisons I did between watercolors and other ways to color.  I make the 'for you' card above.

Thanks for stopping by today.  There is one more video in this series so look for that next week.

Gelli printing fabric

Do you gelli?  Gelli printing is adding paint or other media to gelli plates and then pressing the plate to a surface, usually paper.  I've gelli printed papers of all kind including book paper.  I've used tissue paper and deli paper for some fun effects.  Once I had even tried fabric using a fabric medium but I didn't like the results.

Last year, I came across some fabric paint from Jacquard.  Initially I only bought two colors of their textile paint.  Now I have about 20!   As I said in a recent video, I'm a sucker for products that come in a rainbow of colors.  Although it can be used on other surfaces, it is perfect for fabric as it keeps the fabric supple rather than creating a stiff, unworkable surface.

This is the process I used to create the border fabrics for the leaf series on my Etsy shop LisaEcherdArt.  

To create the fabric above, I set out all my supplies on a well covered work area.  I've learned to have a lot of stencils handy to get some variety. 

I like pressing the gelli plate to the fabric rather than pressing the fabric to the plate.

The coloring on one end of the fabric was more pure.  On other other end I would often use a plate that had residual paint from another press.  It created more muted colors.

I'm now working with one of these pieces in a new quilt design.

Check out my YouTube channel for several videos on gelli printing.  I love to use common objects such as bubble wrap, the bottoms of cookie containers and the spool from a pack of glue dots to make designs.

Thanks for visiting today. The next video in the watercolor card series will be up later in the week.

Quick Watercolor Heart card

Valentine's day is Monday.  Need a quick last minute card?  Or maybe just a pretty card to cheer someone?

Get out your watercolors and a heart punch to make this quick card.  You'll have a lot of fun making this card and learn a simple technique you can use for all kinds of projects.

This is the 2nd in a series of videos using watercolors with regular papercrafting supplies.  If you missed the first video, you can find it here.  In the beginning, I talk about inexpensive watercolors and papers used in this series. You need nothing fancy to complete these projects.

Here's the latest video:

Thanks for watching!  Stay tuned for more videos in this series. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cardmaking with Watercolors Video Series

Hello, everyone!  I have a new video series starting today.  I am creating cards using watercolors along with stamps and regular papercrafting supplies.  

As I am doing more and more sewing, I need more and more crafting space for supplies. I've consolidated some of my storage and given some unused things away.  Now when I need space, I'm having to make some difficult decisions.  I knew this day would come so I started playing with watercolors more last year so that I could hopefully eliminate some stamps and inks.  The latest casualty of my cleanup has been my Stampin' Up! inks.  I prefer Distress Oxides and the SU inks just weren't being used very much.  A friend was delighted to get my old stamp pad stand.  

Cards with Watercolors

In the videos I share some ideas for using watercolors in place of inks and other media. In the first video, I use watercolors in ways that show off their messy beauty.   These are technique videos but I must say no matter the technique the final results will be a little unpredictable.  This is all part of the beauty of watercolors.

I will be posting other videos over the next 2 or 3 weeks so stay tuned.  If you aren't already, please subscribed to my YouTube channel at LisaEDesign or sign up for my newsletter.

Thanks for stopping by!  

Practice and the UFO

I don't know how you get to Carnegie Hall but I know how you improve at free motion quilting. Practice, practice, practice.

I keep a wholecloth quilt sandwich put together all the time to practice designs, test tension on new threads and generally unwind. But I had one practice sandwich that was a little more planned out.

Over two years ago I was taking an online class from Craftsy* in quilting feathers. I quickly fell in love with the process. However, some of, well, many of, my plumes were more squared off than rounded. I needed a lot of practice. At some point I created a practice quilt with a stash of solid fabrics. It was a chance to fill a variety of shapes with features and experiment with different threads. At the time I had only my home sewing machine so I divided the quilt into 3 sections to quilt and then put together later.

Later never came. Until last Saturday morning when I walked into my studio and my eyes landed on one of the sections I had been using as a throw over my feet on cold days. Before I could get distracted, I flipped on my long arm and began finishing the quilting on a couple of sections and was soon sewing the large pieces together.

You can see from the photos that I used all kinds of threads and every feather design in the class. I arranged the fabrics so I would have a variety of shapes to fill. These are far, far from perfect. I still love to do feather work whenever it fits the theme of a quilt.

If you aren't a quilter, you might think a UFO is still a little green man from Mars. In the quilting and sewing worlds it is a Unfinished Fabric Object. I've heard the term used in papercrafting too for those unfinished scrapbook albums. I guess we should call those USA but that would really be confusing.

Fortunately the snow missed us but not the cold so I enjoyed a warm weekend putting together the sections of my practice quilt and finishing the quilting. Completing a project is it's own reward but this one gave me more practice and a larger quilt to keep my feet warm.

This weekend, I've been baking a cake and am working on some cards for a new video. Stay tuned...

Thanks for visiting today.

*The specific class I took was Ultimate Free Motion Feathers from Patsy Thompson. It is excellent.