Working with watercolors (by me)

LOL-- I say working with watercolors "by me" in my title because this layout is a complete, total, 100% scraplift from my friend Valerie.  Here's a link to her blog with the layout I copied errr was inspired by:  Valerie B's BLOG!

First, I had to make the oval paper on my Gypsy for cutting on my Cricut: 

(I'm saving all of those ovals for later....)

I didn't have watercolor paints when I first set out to copy Valerie's layout so I used water color pencils and some shimmery chalks (Pebbles Inc brand).

 

Here's what it looked like when done. You can tell by the pencil/coloring marks which ovals are colored in with the pencils and the other ones without those lines were shaded in with chalks. 

 

Then I got me some watercolors.  :)  I cut the ovals out once again so I could compare the two different mediums side by side. 

On the left is watercolor pencils and shimmer chalks, on the right watercolor paints.  I think I like the one on the left more; the one on the left is too dark but I just need to practice at making my watercolors lighter, i.e. with more water or less of the actual color.

I wound up using the pencil and chalk one, just because it's lighter and that's what I really wanted.

Oh and I made my own tags.  The ones that go behind the picture?  I didn't have those so I got some scraps, a circle punch, and a hole puncher. 

Next, my chevron paper was a bit too dark so I wanted to use vellum.  The problem with that was that I couldn't find my vellum.  But I did find some tracing paper that is acid free so I used that.  See the difference?

My finished layout.  The waves are cut from the CM Traveler cartridge, the polka dot card behind the photo is from one of the Project Life kits, the button is Studio Calico, binder clip is Fancy Pants, "hello" in the title is Simple Stores, and I cut "Paradise" from the Cricut using the Lyrical Letters cartridge (I did have to weld the letters together myself).  There's some yellow polka dot ribbon and some washi tape beneath that.  The sun is cut from the Traveler cartridge too.  The chevron paper is Simple Stories and the wave and title are cut from CTMH paper (Dotty For You). 

 

Add some sequins and some Prima Say It In Crystals.

 

 

I used the tracing paper for some little journaling accents here and there (just like Valerie's though my old-fashioned typewriter is put away in storage somewhere).

 

All done.  :)

 

 

So then I needed to use up my ovals.... I decided to paint those with watercolors, too, and once dry I stamped a CTMH sentiment on there.  A word to the wise:  Wait until your paper is COMPLETELY DRY before stamping.  See the sentiment on the bottom left oval, how it's blurry on one side and at the bottom?  That's because the paper was still semi-wet.  I thought it would be ok but I was wrong!  ;-)

 

 

I also watercolored some of the bigger ovals in brown to make a 3D frame for my sentiment.

 

Using a Darice embossing folder in the form of a cross, I embossed a sheet of white, used my handy dandy corner edger on the corners, inked all my card and card topper edges, added SU! satin ribbon in Chocolate Chip, and then my ovals, ending with some bling.  Card all done and I used up some of those ovals from my previous projects. 

Detail shot.  I did put the top turquoise oval onto pop dots for further dimension.

And that is the end of my (current) experimenting with watercolors.  I really loved using them and I plan to bring them out more often in the future. 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!