Springtime Hello and Art in the Round

Ooh, I have a very busy day today because this weekend I and some of my team members will be taking part in Art in the Round, a brand new art event for Derby city. 

The Roundhouse in Pride Park will be teeming with artists, exhibiting and selling their work - and, upstairs, on the balcony, we will be offering workshops. We have a packed programme for adults and children, so please do pay us a visit to find out what’s going on. We’d love to see you there!

Meanwhile, I know you’ll be wondering what happened to all my projects, so here’s one using the gorgeous Springtime Hello stamp set. 

I’ve used the same technique which we used at the class I held last month; I inked up the stamp using markers, then spritzed it with water before stamping onto Watercolour Paper. I kept the card simple as it’s clearly a sympathy card; it’s for a friend who lost her beloved dog last week. I didn’t feel the happy puppy in Storytime Friends was appropriate in this case. 

Stampin᾿ Up! Supplies

Table built by craftingbecky.com

Springtime Hello	So Sorry Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Old Olive A4 Card Stock
Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	6 X 9 Watercolor Paper	Gingham Garden Designer Washi Tape
Jet Black Stazon Pad	Many Marvelous Markers	Stampin' Spritzer

Doodling and watercolouring - two fun techniques

Here’s another of the projects we made at the Springtime Hello class. This involves simply watercolouring the image using the ink from ink pad lids and either a paintbrush or aquapainter. I’ve used Old Olive and Bermuda Bay and painted very roughly – you ARE allowed to go over the lines you know! It took seconds to do. Then, while it was drying, we had a go at a bit of doodling. Some simple lines with a Basic Black marker was all it took to create this fun effect. 

The final project at the class was one I’ve already shown you; this little canvas and easel. After my many attempts to get this project right, I expected the same to happen to the ladies at the class, so had lots of spare canvases available. Fortunately my experiences meant we could learn from my mistakes and they all went pretty swimmingly!

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Watercolour effect with Springtime Hello

The second watercolour technique we tried at Friday’s class was using a more traditional method. For this card we simply painted three stripes of colour across some watercolour paper. 

Some of us used Aquapainters, while others used a paintbrush; it’s all down to preference. And, of course, we used Stampin’ Up!® reinkers for our “paint”. Do experiment though, as I’ve found that some of the richer blues break up when you try to paint with them. Here we used Old Olive (of course), Summer Starfruit and Coastal Cabana. 

Once they were dry (speeded up with the heat gun), we stamped over the top in Black Stazon and spritzed with the Smooch Spritz. The ribbon effect is easy to achieve with seam-binding ribbon. Simply fray one end and find a single strand around the centre, then pull on this while ruffling the ribbon. Very effective. 

The card base is made from Shimmery White for extra shimmer and stability, as it’s a heavier weight than our Whisper White. 

I’ve had a busy weekend. On Sunday I was at Broomfield Hall all day, promoting Stampin’ Up!® and meeting lots of ladies who expressed an interest in cardmaking. I hope to meet them again at a class or event soon!

And last night I was at the Roundhouse in Derby, to discuss an exciting new event called Art In The Round. This will take place on May 3rd and 4th and involve dozens of artists getting together to display and sell their work, as well as some of them (including me) offering “have a go” workshops. I’ll post more about this event nearer the time. 

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Watercolour technique with Springtime Hello

Friday night’s class was a very relaxing one, even though we were playing with techniques which have the potential to cause stress if they don’t go as expected. A request had been made for “watercolouring techniques” and I had great fun designing the projects for the class. 

This technique is fun to do and produces really lovely results – even if they’re not always what you’re expecting. I had to keep reminding the ladies that there is no such thing as “wrong”, only “different”!

To produce this effect, I began by inking up my stamp with markers. I used Daffodil Delight, Old Olive and Pool Party. Next I spritzed the rubber with water and stamped onto watercolour paper. The effect varies according to how many times you spritz and how far away you hold the spritzer, so it’s really best just to play around and see what you like best. The more water you get on the stamp, the less definition you’ll see in your finished image. 

I did the same technique with the Gorgeous Grunge speckles so that they’d look more painted than stamped. 

Oh, and if your stamped image isn’t quite as “watery” as you’d like, you can simply spritz directly onto the paper and see what happens. 

It has to dry fully before you can do anything else, so we speeded up this process with a heat gun. To finish off, I stamped the greeting and overstamped the bee in Black Stazon; using clear-mount stamps meant I could see where I was stamping, but it didn’t matter too much anyway as it’s that kind of relaxed card. 

Honestly, I could ink and spritz and stamp all day, it’s so relaxing. Give it a try!

By the time you read this I should be on my way to Broomfield Hall for the Food and Craft Fair. If you manage to get to this event, please do pop by and say hello. Apparently there will be an appearance by Jim the miniature Shetland pony at 1pm… and I have to confess that this is one of the reasons I booked a stall!

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