Two Peas in a Pod....Serendipity Stamps

Well, Joyce and I leave on Wednesday....by the time we get back, hopefully we will be like Two Peas in a Pod. Once we get all our stuff in her car, we may feel like we are in a pea pod! LOL! Thursday's schedule calls for 16 hours on the road, so think about us!!

I always love the look of torn paper. I tore this to look kind of like the earth.

I just love this bird's nest and the saying to go with it! It is even prettier in real life!

Tulips in Vase

Here is another card I did with one of my new Serendipity Stamps and K & Company paper. Tulips are one of my favorite flowers (actually there aren't too many flowers I don't like!).

When I did the vase with watercolor crayons, there was only the outside line of the vase. One thing I like about using the crayons is that then I can take some of the pigment with a wet brush and drag it over to other areas. You can do that if you use watercolor paper....not so much if you use card stock. If that is not enough pigment, than you can always supplement with more paint, working wet into wet for a soft look. Notice how I left the center light as a highlight. This gives the vase much more dimension compared to just having the outline of the vase.

I also like to supplement with Twinkling H20's or some other shimmering paint. I did that on the actual blossoms and then spattered some of the shimmer over the whole painting.

I am on the road again. We drove down to Amelia Island in NE Florida today and I am overlooking the Atlantic Ocean as I type. Next week, we will be in SanDestin, so I will give a report about any effects of the oil spill there. I have some pretty cool new camera equipment for my Thelma and Louise trip, so plan on trying that out on this trip. Jim told me I have all my presents for this year and next year and he also said I should mention how nice he is to me.....LOL! He does put up with a lot! We will have our anniversary while we are on this trip. When we get home I will have two whole days to get my new crown put on my mouth and new glasses on my face (I took my other new ones back), pack and also have a service call for the AC that is not draining properly! Whew!

Serendipity's Panda Stamps

This stamp brings back memories of taking my kids to see the Pandas at the Atlanta Zoo back when they were teenagers. I added some shimmer to the green leaves, but that does not show up in the photo.

I used the EK Success Circle Scissor Pro, which works great for circles up to six inches in diameter. I love the way the blade unit attaches to the circle cutter so that it is always together.

Sitting around eating with friends...now that sounds like fun! Wonder how much weight Joyce and I will lose on our hiking treks on our big photography trip? I have a lot of equipment to carry but I am also carrying 66 lbs less than I was last year! Carrying photography equipment is much better than carrying fat, don't you think? Hmmm, those pandas are a little chubby, arent' they?

Serendipity Stamps Lilies

I have a lot of lilies blooming right now in my yard, both oriental and day lilies, so I really like this stamp. I also like the Bible verse.

I die cut this image while visiting a friend. I do not have this die and was surprised when it had the little detail going around the edges. I will confess ahead of time that I probably over used it on the upcoming cards, so I will apologize in advance, but you know how it is when we get to play with a new toy!

Another thing I like is torn paper. It just has such an impromptu look. When I taught art to elementary students, one of my favorite projects was torn paper compositions. We usually did one in fall of the mountains, winter of snow and then one of the beach in the spring. The kids always asked, Can't we use scissors? They did not like doing it as much as I do!

Other than the torn paper, same formula....water colored image, decorative paper for background and ribbon for embellishment.

Thanks for visiting!

Watercolor with Serendipity Stamps

One of my favorite stamp companies ever since I began stamping has been Serendipity Stamps. I love the images Mary Dew Lee makes into stamps and the word stamps too. I always like it when there are word stamps to go with the images.

A lot of cards that you see on other blogs are so complex! I probably would not make one of them, much less several to actually send. I believe in making cards to actually mail! To simplify my cards, I usually stick to this rule of requirements for a card to look complete. You need three things....the image, a background and an embellishment.

I guess I am a realist as I am drawn to images that look real like many of the Serendipity images and Inkadinkado Sketch type stamps. I like images that can be "colored". On most of the cards I will share with you, I color by using watercolor crayons. To me it is one of the easiest ways of coloring but gives such a great look. I do enjoy die cuts and punches or cutters like the new circle cutter from EK Success. I use the curvy cutter for ovals.

For my background, I like to use decorative paper as there are so many pretty ones and it is easier than stamping a background. My favorite paper comes from K & Company.

For embellishments, I like ribbon, sewing, eyelets, punch art and other items that are fairly flat. If it is too dimensional, it will get messed up in the mail.

I also like a little bling like the sheen on the ribbon, the metallic paint added to the flowers and the shimmer paper used below. I like a touch of glitter too. I try to work in odd numbers, such as there being three ribbons here and three main areas.

Most every card I make has some inspiration from a photo. I colored these hollyhocks burgundy as my friend that has a house near the cabin has hollyhocks and no matter what color they are when she buys them, they end up turning burgundy the next year.

I thought I took photos of hollyhocks at Biltmore back in the spring but could not locate them, but there are photos somewhere. I have several more cards to share with Serendipity stamps. Hope you enjoy them!

I love to color!

First of all, let's have a moment of silence for my new camera which I did not even have for six weeks before someone decided they needed it more than me last Tuesday, broke in my house (broad daylight) and stole it, along with my MacBook Pro and several other electronic devices and various pieces of jewelry. Hours of work editing photos also went with my laptop which had all my photos from Alaska on it. Numerous books on tape were on my Zen 30 gig and 60 gig mp3 players and all my music on my new iPod nano I had only a month. It is quite depressing so I decided I needed to do some coloring to try to cheer myself up.

So, here are some new stamps from Serendipity that I took with me this weekend while in South Carolina for my husband's family reunion. I also took my Copics and my watercolor. First, let's look at an image that I colored in all three methods. The image above was colored with Copics and then the background was airbrushed with Copics. I used post it notes to mask the pumpkins when airbrushing.

This example was done with watercolor paints on watercolor paper.

The image above was done with watercolor crayons used directly to the stamp and then watercolor paints to fill in missing areas.

I thought the blue sky airbrushing on this winter scene worked especially well. I think I will add some Martha Stewart Crafts fine crystal glitter to the snow for an icy look.

When I get new stamps I like to get to know them and color them in different ways. Some stamps look and work better in certain mediums but you don't always know until you try it.

I have many more images to share and then I will be making finished cards to share. I also have some new EK Success calligraphy pens I want to try out.

Even though the robbers did take one of my monitors I use on my desktop (as well as my external harddrive I use for backup), they did not take my desktop tower. Makes you ponder about what to do about backup though....anyone use Carbonite or one of the other backup systems? I always thought that having things on two computers was a form of backup, but if someone stole both computers you would be up the creek without a paddle. Thanks for listening to my whining, but it has been a very upsetting experience. My daughter calls me the "Queen of Electronics" and they really wiped me out.