Hey gang!
Happy December everyone! Finally, I can sing Christmas songs and wear my Christmas jumper without getting the scornful eye from hubby! Haha! YIPPEEE! I love Christmas! Fingers crossed we can get our decorations up today!
And even though I don’t normally make a lot of Christmas cards, I simply couldn’t resist buying this cute Christmas stamp set from MyFavoriteThings, called ‘Beast Friends’, which has the most adorable little yeti monsters ever!! And I love that they can be used for non-Christmas occasions too – multi-use stamps definitely get extra points in my book! <3
In my last video, I used colouring pencils to create a soft, textured look on a cute stamped owl image, and in todays card I am using a similar technique with watercolours. I just love the way it gives so much life to a card, but doesn’t add lots and lots of dimension which makes it hard to post.
In fact, this whole card is a one-layer card – there is zero dimension to it at all. I am sure you know that this is pretty unusual for me (as I LOOVEE dimension) but I like to mix it up now and again! Plus, I really wanted to paint this cute monster! HE’S ADORABLE!
First I used masking paper to mask two areas of my watercolour cardstock, then I stamped images all over the background to create a pattern. I used memento ink for this because I knew that it is waterproof and would not bleed when I added the watercolour paint. The masking paper that I have is actually more like masking plastic, so it resists the ink and paint, although most masking paper is more like a post it note – so it doesn’t resist the ink, but still protects the card underneath. Both work just fine, but if you are trying this at home with the paper mask – then yours might look a little different compared to mine in the video at this stage. 🙂
I used tumbled glass and broken china distress inks on my background, and then reached for my kuretake gansai tambi watercolours to colour in the images on my card. I used both a number 4 and number 3 ProArte round paint brush, mostly the number 4 – it has a nice point which makes it easy to make even small lines on my project.
Once the background was coloured and dried, I then removed the mask and stamped the yeti image using tea dye distress ink. This creates a very light stamped image that is barely visible – you can use the lines as a guide for painting, but when the painting is complete, you cannot see any trace of stamped lines. This way you can pretend that you are a super good illustrator and painter, and no one will ever know the difference! LOL 🙂
When it came to painting the yeti, layers was the key for me, and because of this, it certainly took time. The video is rather sped up but I wanted you to see the whole card come together, so please forgive me if its a bit faster than my usual videos. Even though this card doesn’t have actual dimension, I wanted to create the illusion of dimension, and to do this I used my paintbrush to paint small lines for the yeti’s fur, and used a variety of different colour tones. I wasn’t afraid to leave a few white (unpainted) spots, as this actually makes it look like highlights on the image.
Around the edges of the image I used my paints to create a darker border or outline of each coloured section, and also added some shadows using watered down black paint. I like the way this gives more life to the final image!
Once I was happy with my painted yeti, I then moved over to my greeting. I removed the strip of masking paper from the bottom of the card, and used my MISTI tool and some SSS Sparrow ink to stamp the ‘are you YETI for Christmas?’ stamp, also from the MFT Beast Friends set.
My card was almost done, I simply added a few details with my white gel pen, around the scalloped circle, greeting strip and to add highlights to some the background images – especially the Santa hats.
I simply mounted the painted cardstock onto a folded card blank and my the card was done! HAZZAH!
Isn’t it cute! I love him!
Be sure to check out the video here, walking you through the whole process, and at the end of the video you will also see another painted yeti that I made for a tag.
In other news, the HoneyBeeStamps gang are having a Crafty Clearout! Jump on over to the ‘clearing out the hive’ Facebook page, and look at the ALBUMS to see what is available from each of the girls.
Some designers are based in the UK, others are from elsewhere in the world, so postage will vary depending on who you buy from. They seem to be clearly labelled so far! 🙂
Also, over on the HoneyBeeStamps Blog, they are celebrating 12 Days of Christmas, with 12 guest designers! Why not take a look to see who has been getting crafty! Here is a link to take you right to day 1–> 12 days of Christmas with HoneyBeeStamps!
Have fun, and happy Crafting, my friends!!
x
Lesley
Even though it is fast approaching Christmas, I couldn’t quite allow myself to add a Christmas greeting, so instead I decided to use the Brush Grunge Alpha set to create my own greeting! This way it would be used for a birthday, a thank you card, or for any other occasion- just with a wintery twist! To make sure that the card had a nice finished look, when fussy cutting out ‘Cool Friend’, I held another piece of card behind my stamped cardstock, so I cut out two identical pieces of white cardstock. This meant that I could stick the stamped greeting on the front and add a matching piece of blank cardstock on the back.
