Blog Candy

Would you like some 6x6 Stampin' Up! Pattern Paper and a couple little surprise gifts included? If you said "yes", make sure you leave a comment on this post before 30 December 2008 and you will go into the draw!

Updated:

THE WINNER IS HEATHER "HEV"!

Thank you everyone for your comments!

No Worries!

Hooray for Ace! He is such a cool dragon! I made this card to give to my High Hopes Blog Hop winner, Tamara. I wanted to wait until she had received it to post a photo of the card and I just realised that I still haven't posted it! I assume she would have the candy by now so here he is... ACE!

Best Fishes

Well, I am nearing the end of my Christmas cards now. That is provided I don't make anymore in the next couple days! This is the second last one I have made. I can imagine what you are saying right now... "what... more flowers and wire?".... yeah, I promise I will work on moving away from them very soon! I usually find a good thing then stick to it... especially when I am a bit restricted by time or I am a little low on stampin' mojo.

WOOHOO! Christmas Eve... only one more sleep!!

BEST FISHES FOR A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HO, HO, HO

Ever wondered what Santa gets up to on Boxing day? This apparently! This Santa is a pretty cool one! This is pretty much what our Christmas is like here in Australia... you wake up, put on the air con to cool the place down and then you try not to go outside to much in the heat of the day! Well thats our Christmas anyway, some people are more keen than us and go to the beach and stuff... meh... it's to hot there!

Well, its getting closer to Christmas.... YAY! I have been so excited for days. This is the very first Christmas or birthday EVER where Matt and I have not chosen out own presents... he keeps teasing me and saying that I will love it and I will never guess it. The pressie is in medium sized box... there is a big bit that slides from side to side and a small bit that rolls.... YEP... I have spent some time under our stick tree shaking it! As for the stick tree bit, we were going to get a real tree this year but didn't get around to it so we ended up getting a dead stick from the park out the back and hanging decorations on that. It's very 'Aussie'. Next year... I'M GETTIN' ME A REAL ONE! It's rather exciting... I've never, ever had a real tree in my entire life... just plastic ones.

Watercolouring Tutorial

I often get emails asking how I watercolour... gee are there A LOT of different ways out there and I have tried dozens of them! I remember when I first started, I read and read and still didn't know where to start. This tutorial shows how I watercolour and techniques I personally find the best at giving me the results I like.

What I use:

• Stampin' Up! Blender Pen
• Stampin' Up! Watercolour Paper
• Stampin' Up! Classic Ink Pads
• Jet Black Stazon Ink
• Twinkling H2O's
• Fine Aqua Painter

1. With the classic ink pad closed, press the lid hard into the ink pad to transfer ink onto the lid. This will be your palette. Use a blender pen to pick up a small amount of ink and then watercolour as if you are using a marker. Scribble the blender pen on scrap paper to clean and remove the ink and change colour.
Tip: Start with your lightest shade first, allow each layer to dry fully and then work on building the colour rather than trying to watercolour the shade you want it straight up. This way you will have more control over the tonal variation of your image.

2. Watercolour a light wash over the entire image. Think about the lightest area you would like, and do the whole image in that light shade.
3. Allow the first layer to dry then apply some thick colour where the sun would be casting a shadow. Without letting the ink dry, quickly wipe the blender clean and then in small circular motions, blend just the edge of the colour in with the lighter areas.

4. Continue over the whole image returning to areas when they are dry to apply more layers if you would like it darker again.

5. Decide on a secondary colour to really bring your image to life. Watercolour lightly on the shadow/dark areas.

6. Continue over the whole image then add other colours.

7. Apply a small amount of Twinkling H2O's with an Aqua Painter on the dark areas to accentuate them further.

Tip: try not to let too much water leak onto the paper. Lightly wet the entire area to spread the H2O's properly and to avoid having little water line marks left behind.

8. Apply your finishing touches to the rest of your image. I put some Kindy Glitz on Huggable Hank's wings and a bit of H2O's on his scales in blue to make them stand out.

I hope this helps! GOOD LUCK!!

Merry Kiss-Moose

I made this one for my boss. He went to Canada in November to look for polar bears... I don't know if Canada was right where he was looking but he came back with moose presents! A pen and a pencil I have named my Bullwinkle pencil! I thought Merry Kiss-Moose would be a great card for him. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE Twinkling H2O's? They make any watercolouring look fantastic! It's just subtle but the little shimmer really gives it a little something!

G'Day Mate Kanga

I made this card a while ago too for the fabulous Crissy! I decided that even though she drew the gorgeous kangaroo, she would still like to receive a card with him on it... from Australia! I love these Aussie stamps! I couldn't possibly love the little Kanga and Sydney more!

Now, it was somewhere around watercolouring Kanga when I realised that I couldn't possibly live without my H2O's. All I had used them on before this was Kimmie's 'Sydney Koala' card below... they seriously hide so many little bits of colouring that I am concerned about and they make the colouring look so much more vibrant.... ohhhhh I love them! I just use them to accentuate the shadow/dark areas so it also means I don't have to do so many layers of colour trying to get it dark enough for my liking.

G'Day Mate

I made this card quite a while ago for fellow diva, Kimmie. I needed to send her a stamp that I had one extra of and thought that I should put a card with it too! What better than a little koala card from Australia!

This was my first attempt at using Twinkling H2O's properly and when I was finished I was so happy, now I use them on everything I watercolour!

Product of the Month

How sweet is the High Hopes POTM this month?!

M-042 Branch 10.70

F-155 Nest 6.70

E-150 Perched Birdie 6.00

H-186 Landing Birdie 8.00

H-185 Love Nest Valentine 8.00

The regular price for this set would be $39.40 CDN mounted but for the month of December you can purchase them on sale for $29.55 CDN mounted, $14.80 unmounted or $22.15 on cling foam, which is 25% off!!!

Flower Power

This is the very last High Hopes Challenge for the year! I can't believe how close it is to Christmas! As always, some great stamps will be given to one lucky participant of our challenge and all you have to do is use flowers... stamps, pattern paper, punchies... any flowers!

This card served two purposes this week. I made it for the challenge and also for my boss to give to his wife for their anniversary. She loved it apparently so I am really happy!

Owl Clock

I made this clock on the weekend and I am SO happy with it! I borrowed a couple ideas from Jane Jones' owl album (which I love so much I am going to get some more paper and make one too!) Jane's ideas were the extra little owls on the main tree and cutting out the little trees to the right. I was so glad I came across Jane's album because up until then I had only glued down the main owl piece to the clock and I had hit a wall! I just couldn't be happier with this... it was even good enough to make it to the lounge room for display rather than just my shelves in my stamp room!