Watercolor Fun

Last week, my friend Susan posted a series of cards using Designer Series Paper (DSP) and just a stamp or two. Her goal was to show how to use minimal Stampin’ Up!® supplies for a quick and gorgeous card.

Susan not only met that goal, she knocked it out of the park! All five of her cards were lovely, and none took over five minutes to create. You cannot go to the store and pick out a card that lovely in five minutes. And people appreciate handmade cards so much. I used to hear, “Did you make that lovely card?” each time someone received a card I sent. I still hear it sometimes, but most people know that’s what I do, so I don’t hear it as much these days.

One of the things I loved best about Susan’s series was that each card was very adaptable to other DSP, stamps, and ink. I used her Friday card sketch to create this one.

I love the Let it Ride Stamp Set from the 2019 Stampin’ Up!® Occasions Catalog. It’s very versatile and can be used for many occasions.

There’s a saying in the contracting world, “Measure twice, cut once.” Well, my style is more like, “Eyeball it, cut, then trim a little, then…” (Too often, it ends with grab another sheet of paper and try again, but I digress.) I cut a 3-3/4″ wide piece of the Twinkle, Twinkle DSP from the 2018-19 Annual Catalog, then lopped the bottom off at a diagonal. It didn’t give me room to layer over the Night of Navy Cardstock, so I trimmed a little more.

If you need measurements, the diagonal piece of DSP is 3/3-4″ x 4″ at the lowest tip of the diagonal. I used the DSP as a guide for the Night of Navy Layer. I did plan ahead a little before stamping. I placed the Night of Navy Cardstock on the card, then lightly traced the bottom  so I’d know where to stamp my horses and sentiment. After all that non-measuring and cutting, I didn’t want my horses’ heads to end up under the DSP.

First, I stamped the horses in Jet Black Stāzon Ink, because I used Watercolor Pencils to color the images. I had planned to color with Stampin’ Blends, but they bleed through the card stock, and I didn’t want the inside of the card to be ugly. Of course, I could have covered it with another layer of card stock or DSP, but this is supposed to be a simple card.

I created a mask for the horses by stamping them on scrap paper and cutting them out. Then I laid the mask on the already stamped horses and stamped the trees behind them in Shaded Spruce Classic Ink. Tip: Create your mask using Post-It notes. Make sure at least part of the image is over the repositionable area so your mask stays in place when you stamp. This is especially important if there’s a skinny part of the mask that might want to move a bit – like a horse’s leg, for example.

Using a Blender Pen, I pulled color from the trees and grass to fill in the grassy area behind the horses. I also added a tiny bit of Old Olive Classic Ink to the grass. I colored the horses with an Early Espresso Watercolor Pencil, blending with the Blender Pen.

Finally, I added the sentiment in Night of Navy. I absolutely love the sentiments in the Let it Ride Stamp Set. They are so positive and encouraging.

This card would have been posted earlier today. Mike & I went out of town over the weekend, and I took a week’s worth of cards to blog, as well as my Stamparatus and some other supplies to practice a watercolor technique. As I was unpacking my supplies, ready to practice the technique, I realized the Stamparatus was missing. I checked the car – nothing. Sadly, the cards I was going to post were in the Stamparatus carrying bag. Oh, drat. I must have forgotten to carry it out of my stamp room, or maybe we left it on the sofa at home.

After we got home last night, I discovered my Stamparatus was not on the sofa. Neither was it in the stamp room. Using a flashlight this time, I checked the car again, and there it was. It had been in the car the entire weekend. UGH! So my plan for getting more organized and catching up didn’t work out, but I did have a lovely time. Mike’s gouty toe was acting up, so I got several nice walks in with Max, and Max and I read a couple books. It was cold over the weekend, and Max likes to snuggle to get warm after his extensive search for the perfect spot to, well, you know. And, of course, he had to mark every dead bush, dry twig, and snow pile he could find. Dogs, right?

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy. Have a lovely day!

Product List