Retreat Cards

I spent a few days making cards at my last retreat!  I got to spend 4 days and 3 nights with a fun group of ladies and getting creative, and messy..  Most of these cards were made with water color papers and Tim Holtz Distress Inks, and one set with the Distress Oxide Inks.

This set is Distress Inks (with an ink blending tool) on watercolor paper, then I used a background stamp sprayed with water.  The tress and black ink are from Stampin Up!



This set is also from watercolor paper, and the butterfly is the Swallowtail from SU, the bottom was the first generation water stamping, and the top one is second generation without re-wetting the stamp.



These are all the same technique, and all SU stamps for the trees and black ink.







This one was my favorite of the bunch, such pretty colors!



I took a break from watercoloring and used some plain white cardstock and Papertey Ink stamps fro the argyle.



Back to watercolor..  This next set is watercolor paper with Distress Inks, and then dry embossed.  The black cardstock was cut with my Cricut.



The butterfly is an SU die.



This butterfly was from the Cricut.



These I lifted the idea from Pinterest.  The leaves are Papertrey Ink, and the butterflies are Hero Arts.



These are also lifted from Pinterest.  The stamps are Altenew Vintage Roses.



Hero Arts hydrangea colored with copics, background is SU.



Butterflies are Hero Arts, backgrounds are stencils and Glimmer Mist, and Tim Holtz heat embossed clocks.



These are the Distress Oxide Inks.  I followed a tutorial by Jennifer McGuire on YouTube.

Lots of cards!

I have been on a watercolor kick lately and made a bunch of beautiful cards, plus a few more with some new Stampin Up! products that I bought.  I used a variety of embossing folders on watercolor paper, and a mixture of Tim Holtz Distress Inks, water, Perfect Pearls powder and good, old fashioned Crayola water color paints.   I didn't take close ups of all of the watercolor ones, but they were all basically done the same way.  I roughly painted them first, then sprayed the whole thing with the pearlized water, and then used my heat tool to speed up the drying process.

 




This is what they all looked like after they were dry.

I matted them on a simple black mat and kraft base, and added a banner and sentiment.
 
This one with the clouds, I added some Glossy Accent raindrops.

This one was my first attempt at the Galaxy style background.  I stamped the foliage first, then I painted the colors the same way.  I spritzed with clear water, no pearl powder this time, and used the heat tool to dry.  After it was dry, I splattered some of the pearlized water on for some stars.  The stamping was done first, and I didn't think it stood out enough, so I went back over it with clear embossing powder, and blended the edges with Dusty Concord and Black Soot.



 These ones were made with the new SU Flourishing Phrases set.  I used the Distress inks directly on the base paper with the blending tool, and then used the large flourish stamp with plain water to get the watermark effect.
 
This background is just ink to paper with the blending tool, with the flourish die cut in black.

This last set, I inked the large flourish stamp with many colors of Distress Ink and sprayed it with water before stamping.  The lacy strip across the card was also colored with coordinating Distress Ink.

Swallowtail by Stampin Up!

I just got this stamp just a few days ago from my friend Kim and have already put it to good use!  Most of these are lifts of another card, by technique or by material, that I see on Pinterest and I am not really good at keeping track...

This one I stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black, and used Distress Inks with water to color the image. I stamped the white cardstock layer and card base at the same time, then added the black layer.




This one I inked up the stamp with Distress Markers, spritzed with water and then stamped.




This is the thumping technique, which is pretty simple but has a complicated looking effect.  I thought mine wouldn't turn out that well but I was pleasantly surprised!  Basically you ink up your stamp and then thump 3 or 4 coordinating colored markers all over the image and then stamp. I used a light colored Memento ink and Distress Markers, going from lightest to darkest.  Easy peasy!




For this one I used clear embossing ink and powder on white cardstock first, then used Distress Inks and the blending tool to ink over the design in varying colors, or embossed resist as it is called.  I spritzed it with water at the end for the light dusting of water splotches.




This one was kind of a fail at what I was attempting, but it turned out ok.  It is a single layer card and I used the embossed resist technique as well.  I wanted to color in the design with Distress Markers, which I did, and then wipe it off for a clean finish.  Well, when I wiped it off the ink smeared.  So I just went with it and smeared it all. Not what I intended, but...!,




These ones have a lot going on.  I first stamped the image using the thumping technique the same as before, then I used a mask of the same image and stamped the backgrounds over the top so the butterfly would remain clear.  The brown of the background images, the music and wheat and text, was a bit harsh next to the butterfly, so I decided to do the backgrounds a little differently.  I put the butterfly mask back down and inked each image with a similar color around the edges, and then softened the whole thing with a little bit of brown.







This one is my favorite, and an entire creation of my own.  I started out by seeing another card with the clouds and grass done with Distress Inks and a simple paper mask.  I tore two ends of a piece of paper in a loosely straight line for the grass, and then cut scallops on two ends of another scrap for the clouds.  I inked each end with the blending tool and Distress Inks in varying layers in blue and green for the grass and sky, and then used the wheat background stamp over the top in varying shades of brown Memento Inks.  I had no idea where this card was going, and was just creating backgrounds to see how they looked.  At first I had thought of putting some sort of sign or fence post to hold a greeting, because something wood grain seemed appropriate, but that would cover up too much of the pretty background.  I decided to use a die cut greeting, but none of the ones I had would fit, being as they were too large.  I recently Got a Cricut Explore machine and have used it exactly zero times, so I can't even tell you what I cut.  I pushed the add text button and typed "Hi."  I have no idea what font it is, and just sized it to fit 4 on a sheet with enough room to be die cut later.  The brown part is the die cut, the negative of the letters.  It started out as white cardstock, which I ran through my Cuttlebug.  First with a circle die and then with the wood grain embossing folder, and then heavily inked up with Distress Inks in Frayed Burlap.





After all that I sprayed it with water, and then with an Adirondack color wash spray in Raisin I think. When it dried, I used the white Distress Marker on the raised areas, and then put a piece of white cardstock underneath.  The little butterfly is a Stampin Up punch, and the color is Worn Lipstick Distress Ink on white cardstock.  I inked the scrap of paper, sprayed it with water to make it splotchy, and punched it out after it dried.  This card was by far more labor intensive than the rest, taking about 2 hours to make 4, but turned out so pretty!