Tag Archives: watercolor

A Very Simple Get Well Card Using Impression Obsession’s Tulip Stamp

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I haven’t posted in a while because I just seemed to have lost my creative mojo again.  I decided to make a simple card hoping that would inspire me to create some more.

My Empty Nest Creations simple Get Well Card using Impression Obsession's Tulip stamp

I have always loved cards with bases made from kraft card stock, so I started there.  I just eyeballed where I wanted the simple greeting (Hero Arts Classic Messages stamp set…I use this one all the time 🙂

Using Bristol paper, I stamped the image with Versafine Onyx Black ink because I knew that I was going to use my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers.  After “painting” the image, I added a few simple additions with a white gel pen after it had dried.

This image is a piece of cake to fussy cut 🙂    I adhered it to the card base with some foam tape and called it done.  Like always, I walked away and came back to it a few hours later.  I decided it just needed a bit more, so I added the black dots above and below the flowers.

See, I told you it was a simple card.  The design is pretty generic, too, so it would be great for many types of cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

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A Note of Thanks Using the Mondo Hydrangea set from Ellen Hutson

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I have had this stamp set on my craft desk for quite a while now.  I bought it because I absolutely loved every single card that I saw on Instagram that used this stamp image.  I figured it was about time I gave it a go.

My Empty Nest Creations Thank You Card Using the Mondo Hydrangea Stamp Set

I started by black heat embossing the flower stamp onto a 4×5 1/4″ piece of Bristol paper (I used Bristol because I knew that I was going to be coloring with my Zig Clean Color markers).  I then cut a mask out of masking paper to cover the bloom so that I could black heat emboss a few leaves.  I really love heat embossing any image that I’m going to water color because the embossing keeps bleeding to a minimum.

I pulled out one blue, one yellow, two green Zig markers and my water brush and started coloring.  That’s another thing that I love about Zig markers…you only need a few to get different shading and dimension.  Once the flower and leaves were dry, I stamped the greeting from W Plus 9 Basic Banners stamp set with Faded Jeans Distress Oxide ink that matched the blue from the flower perfectly.  I found a scrap piece of blue Bazzill card stock and mounted the flower piece on top and then attached it to an A2 card base made from Neenah Solar White 110# card stock.  After stepping away for a bit, I decided that something just wasn’t quite right, so I pulled out a fine tip black marker and drew in the frame.  That was exactly what it needed.

Thanks for stopping by!

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OCC Simply Watercolor Day 5

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As I said in my previous post, I’m absolutely loving this online class.  It has given me a lot more confidence in a medium where I had none.  I’ve always loved the watercolor look, but I was never able to get it for myself.  My attempts always looked forced and not “free flowing” enough.  Kristina Werner is such an incredible artist, and in this class, she’s able to give us all a few pointers that have made all the difference for me.

Here’s my Day 5 assignment.  I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.  I hope you like it, too.

OCC Simply Watercolor Day 5 Floral Banner Miss You Card

This watercolor technique was so much easier than I expected.  The wonderful thing about it, too, is that those black outlines tend to hide a few of the small problem areas.  This class has given me just the push I needed to experiment more with my watercolors, and that makes me so happy 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

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Online Card Classes Simply Watercolor Day 4

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I don’t usually take online card classes, but I’ve always been impressed with the classes that Online Card Classes has offered.  Kristina Werner is teaching their latest class called Simply Watercolor.  I decided to take this class because watercolor has never been simple to me, and I knew that Kristina was a wonderful teacher (she’s incredibly talented, too!)  I have to admit that I’m pretty behind on the homework, but I’m truly enjoying just watching the videos and seeing Kristina at work using watercolors.  Just to show you are awesome she is, she is using all different price point watercolors.  It is just amazing to see what she creates with an 8 dollar set of Crayola paints.

Day 4’s lesson was about Landscapes & Nature.  Here’s the card I created after viewing this lesson…

OCC Simply Watercolor Landscapes & Nature assignment by My Empty Nest Creations

I forgot to mention that no stamps or dies are used on any of the cards in this class.  Everything is hand painted, hand drawn and hand lettered.  Sometimes I get stuck making a card because I don’t have just the right stamps.  I never even think about hand lettering a greeting or hand painting a scene.  This class has definitely made me think outside my box, and I’m truly loving it!

You should definitely check it out 🙂

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Gotta Love Some Whale Humor

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Ever since Ellen Hutson came out with their S’Whale stamp set, I knew it was eventually going to be part of my stash.  I just love the sentiments in it, but it was the whales that immediately caught my attention.  Who doesn’t love some adorable whales, right?

My Empty Nest Creations Thanks a Ton Whale Card using Ellen Hutson's S'Whale stampsFor this card, I paired it with the Hero Arts Wave Background stamp.  First, I cut my piece of Bristol paper using the Memory Box Stitched Rectangles Layers die.  I’ve had the My Favorite Things Rectangle Peek a Boo Window die for forever, but I’ve never used it; so I thought I’d give it a try here.  Once that was done, I placed it on my vertical, top folding A2 card base and lightly traced the window.  After taping off the area around the penciled window, I white heat embossed that open space using my Hero Arts Waves Background stamp.  The coloring was very simple.  I used some Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers in various blue shades to create my ocean.

For the whale, I stamped it onto a scrap of Bristol paper using Versafine Onyx Black ink and colored with a few gray and blue Zig marker shades and my waterbrush.  After fussy cutting it out, I started to put my card together.

I adhered the window piece onto my card base with foam tape, and then placed my whale in the window, again using foam tape.  There are so many great sentiments in this stamp set, so I had trouble deciding which one to use.  I never have enough thank you cards, so I settled on “Thanks a ton”.  I white heat embossed it onto a piece of black card stock and placed it just below the window.

Once I had the card put together, I thought that it needed just a little more blue to balance it out a bit.  I simply glued a strip of blue card stock to the bottom.  I love it when I can use my paper scraps to finish a card.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Concord & 9th’s Hello Lovely…again!

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I just love this stamp set, and I seem to use it on every other card that I make.  It is just that beautiful.  I paired this stamp with some pretty bright Zig Clean Color markers.  I usually am drawn to more pastel or muted colors, but I wanted to venture a little beyond my normal comfort zone.

My Empty Nest Creations Concord & 9th's Hello Lovely Just For You card

I started by white heat embossing the floral image onto Bristol paper.  I especially like doing this because it makes using a water brush much easier.  I used several Zig Clean Color markers to paint the flowers and leaves.  To highlight the floral image, I lightly water colored a gray background using marker 091.

Using Waffle Flower’s Lacy Layers, I die cut the floral piece (what an adorable scalloped edge 🙂 and attached it to a piece of yellow card stock that matched the yellow flowers perfectly.  To give the card a little dimension, I used foam tape to adhere it to the purple polka dot card base.  This card base comes from a Pebbles Cardmaking pad that is loaded with adorable bright colored card bases.  All that was left, was the sentiment.  I white heat embossed a sentiment from Altenew’s Penned Rose stamp set onto a scrap piece of black card stock.

I hope you like it!

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Watercoloring with Distress Oxides AGAIN!

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Let me start by saying that I’m not the best at watercoloring anything, but I just love using Distress Oxides and heat embossing to create some “easy to color” images.  Anyone can color within the lines, right?

Here is my latest card…

My Empty Nest Creations Distress Oxide Watercolor Floral Birthday Card

I started by gold heat embossing and masking many times the rose from Altenew’s Penned Rose stamp set on a piece of Bristol paper.  For the watercolors, I used Peacock Feathers and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxides and a waterbrush.  Once that was dry, I cut it on a diagonal to fit a top folding horizontal A2 card base.  Before adhering it, I covered the whole card base with yellow paper that matched the yellow portions of my watercolor piece.  I attached my diagonal watercolor portion, and added a happy birthday die cut using Lawn Fawn’s Happy Birthday Line Border die and the scrap from my watercolor piece.  Because that scrap wasn’t long enough to cover the whole diagonal line, I simply cut the tail end after “birthday” off.

That’s all there was to it…a pretty simple and colorful birthday card.

Thanks for taking a look!

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Letting Go of My Fear of White Space

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I have learned and been inspired by so many card makers out there in blog land.  I came across a card challenge blog that got me thinking.  I really need to work on my use (or lack of use) of white space in my card making.  It’s so difficult for me to leave a large blank space on any card that I make.  I’m not exactly sure why that is, so I decided to give it a try on my latest card.

My Empty Nest Creations W Plus 9 Doodle Buds and white spaceI started by masking of a line a little more than a third from the bottom edge of a piece of 4 1/4″x5 1/2″ Bristol paper.   W Plus 9 Doodle Buds is one of my favorite whimsical flower stamp sets, so I stamped a few of the flowers along with the stems on this bottom portion.  Me being just a bit lazy, I decided not to bother masking the flowers and stems.  Using a small sponge dauber, I ink blended the background using Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint and Broken China Distress Oxides.

For the flowers, I used my trusty waterbrush and more Distress Oxides–Squeezed Lemonade, Wilted Violet, Seedless Preserves and Abandoned Coral.  Once the watercoloring was dry, I went over the stamped images with a black marker to help them stand out a bit more.

To give the masked edge a better look, I cut a very small strip of paper from My Favorite Things Black & White Stripe paper pad.  Here’s where I struggled with my fear of white space…where was I going to put the sentiment?  My initial thought was above the black & white strip, but that is exactly what I would always do, so I decided to cut it out of white card stock and place it very near the bottom of the card.  I just love how Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Script die cut fits perfectly and shows up nicely over the colored portion.  To complete the card, I glued this card front to a A2 top folding card base.

Thanks for visiting!

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Watercoloring with Distress Oxides

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Have I told you before how much I love Distress Oxides?  They are so incredibly versatile and the colors are just fantastic!  They are so easy to watercolor with that I find that I’m rarely using my traditional watercolors.

My Empty Nest Creations Watercolored Flowers with Distress OxidesThis card uses two watercoloring techniques.  The background was made using, as Kristina Werner says, ink smooshing.  I added Worn Lipstick, Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral on a piece of acrylic and spritzed it with water.  I grabbed a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper and placed it upside down on top of the inks and smooshed it around—Voila…an ink smooshed background!

After letting that dry, I stamped (and masked) several flowers from Simon Says Stamp’s Watercolor Friendly Flowers using Versafine Onyx Black Ink.  Using a waterbrush and some more Distress Oxides (Worn Lipstick, Broken China, Wilted Violet, Seedless Preserves), I painted the flowers with a few layers of ink.  I added some Black Soot Distress Ink to the flower centers.

I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts Made With Love stamp set with Versafine Onyx Black ink.  I knew that I wanted to use one of my new favorite papers from My Favorite Things Black & White Stripe 6×6 paper pad on the left side of my card, but I thought I needed a little more black accent to balance it out.  I found a small stamp set by Simons Says Stamp called Merry Trees that had 3 small filled in circles.  They were perfect.  I placed various black dots around the flowers to complete the card.

I hope you like it!

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Neat & Tangled’s Oak Leaf Stamp Set

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I have loved this set since it first came out.  When I first looked at it, I only saw it as a seasonal set…you know, colored with oranges, golds and reds, but now, I see how versatile it is.  Now that spring is quickly approaching (some places faster than others) I decided to use yellows and greens for my color scheme.

My Empty Nest Creations Neat & Tangle's Oak Leaf stamp watercolored with Distress Oxides

I started by white heat embossing the leaf image onto a piece of 4″x5 1/4″ Bristol paper.  Since I’m still very much a beginner with watercolors, I decided to use my Distress Oxides with water.  I used Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint and Evergreen Bough and loosely painted on the color, not worrying about staying in any lines.  Once that was dry, I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black ink using my Misti.

All that was left was to mount it to my card base.  I knew that I wanted to pull the green out of the leaf, so I found a piece of matching green card stock in my scrap stash (I just love it when I can use up some of my scraps!).  I also knew that I needed to balance out the black from the greeting, so I pulled out one of my new favs—My Favorite Things Black & White Strip 6×6 Paper Pad.  I cut a piece just large enough to mat my card front, but small enough to let the green card base show.

Thanks for visiting!

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