Pretty Painted Flowers

I've been playing with my Lindy's Stamp Gang Mists to colour flowers looking for inspiration and experimenting as I do...

And I wanted to share some images of my playing. 

These all started out as plain white flowers... but now they are far from plain or white.

They are all shown in pairs - left picture is without camera flash and right picture is with camera flash. The colours change between flash and no flash but also so does the shimmer and glitter which is why I've done it this way.

All products are Lindy's Stamp Gang unless otherwise stated.

All flowers were misted liberally with water prior to painting. The colours were all either painted on using a water brush or dropped from the end of the tube of the mister.

Three layers of flat white Bree flowers. Painted with Hag's Wart Orange; Crow's Nest Copper and Golden Doubloons. The layers are held together with a gold glitter brad (source unknown) which I also coloured with the Orange dripped on.

I really love the vibrancy of the colours here. They are just stunning. The orange has a mauve/purplish shimmer to it which is just so unexpected (unless you consider that it is from the Haunted Halloween set).

 Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted with Cotton Candy Pink inside and Witch's Potion Purple on the petal tips. Finished with Kindy Glitz - Black Opal.

 Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted all over with Tiffany's Blue (Now called Tiffany Lou Blue). Tips coloured with Luminere Radiant Rain Colour Concentrate - Sky and Kindy Glitz - Crystal.

I really love this flower, though to be honest neither photo really captures the true colour. It's more of an aqua/teal than it looks in either photo. This is a colour I love and have patterned paper that has been so hard to match, so I will be using this colouring formula again for sure!

Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted inside with Witch's Potion Purple and tips with Long John's Silver. 

The Long John's Silver has a brown/coppery base so gives an instant Vintage look to this flower. This is one of the Moon Shadow Mists which I really adore. I will be getting more of these... they just make creating that Vintage look, so much easier!!

Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted inside with Don't Eat The Golden Snow and tips with Golden Doubloon.

These photos really don't show the stunning gold shimmer of this flower. The Golden Doubloon has the brown Vintage base as well so looks aged without any hard work. (It has what I would call a "Dirty Gold" look rather than a shiny New Gold look.)

Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted inside with Cotton Candy Pink and tips with Jolly Roger Red.

Love this flower too. Yes I know there isn't a flower I don't like... don't get technical with me. I like this because it has a very natural look to the Vintaging. It looks a little like a beautiful pink rose that is a day or two past it's prime having perhaps fallen off the rose bush and is now starting to wilt a little.

Paper Rose from I Am Roses. Painted inside with Hag's Wart Orange and tips with Witches Brew Purple.

I love this flower because it is so out there and bright and almost garish (a bit like me). I love it's moodiness and unexpected colouring - purple and orange, both from the Haunted Halloween Set. Might have to use this colour combination very soon me thinks!!

Paper Rose from I Am Roses. This was painted by my four year old granddaughter Sonia-Marie with Tiffany's Blue (Now called Tiffany Lou Blue) and Cotton Candy Pink under supervision by Nana.

I love this flower because Sonia-Marie did it, and let's be honest I think everything she does is adorable, but doubly so if it is crafting with Nana!!

I've really enjoyed experimenting today, even though it may look like I didn't really achieve a lot. I don't have projects for any of these, so they will be going into my stash of flowers for the time being, but I will definitely be using them on projects at some stage.

Water Colours - Using my Collection - A Review

I've always liked water colours when they don't look pale and overly washed out. (I can see some of you rolling your eyes saying yes we know you like bright colours!!)
Even as a teenager I loved them. I started collecting water colour pencils one at a time because the ones I wanted were so expensive. I used them for various creations and school projects and then I stored them carefully away in a plastic bag for a decade or two (but who's counting).
I've watched various tutorials on You Tube and television about how you can use water colour in your scrapping and paper crafting and I just knew I had to give it a go again. 
In my usual OCD way I also invested in some more water colour products because one can never have enough options (or so I keep telling myself).
So I ended up with water colour pencils, crayons, paints and paper. 
And finally (because laptop wasn't working and I had no excuse NOT to) I did some experimenting with my stash.
Being an analytical OCD type personality, I had to do it right and experiment with different papers as well as the different water colour products so I could see what worked best with what.
I had a selection of different papers - sketch, drawing, water colour and from an art journaling book. As I had four colour mediums, I cut each piece of paper in quarters.
I coloured a small sample of each colour of each product onto each piece of paper, then used my zig water brush to diffuse the colour. I then left each piece of paper to dry naturally.

I bought this pencil set though the book delivery people who leave books in your office for people to buy. The set comes with coloured pencils, drawings pencils, water colour pencils, charcoal pencils and metallic pencils.

Result using the water colour pencils from the pencil set.

L - R journal book paper, sketch paper, drawing paper, water colour paper (lightest weight to heaviest weight paper) 

I was a little disappointed in how wishy-washy the end result was but then they were relatively cheap. Conclusion: buy the best quality you can afford, the results are worth it.

Water colour paint set

Result using the water colour paints.

L - R journal book paper, sketch paper, drawing paper, water colour paper (lightest weight to heaviest weight paper)

I was really impressed with the intensity of the colours of the paints. I thought they might be the most washed out of all, but they weren't. The paint set was NZD$14.00 from Warehouse Stationery which I thought was very reasonable. If you are just wanting to do a little experimenting then this would be a good, value for money investment. 

 

Water colour crayons

Result using the water colour pencils from the crayon set.

L - R journal book paper, sketch paper, drawing paper, water colour paper (lightest weight to heaviest weight paper)

I have had these a while. I bought them and then never touched them. To be honest I really wasn't sure if they would work or not, I mean crayons usually repel water, don't they??

They really do work and they work really well. This pack contains 36 different colours of crayons. There is a nice range of colours which will allow for a good selection of toning of colours.

I tried these both direct to paper and from the crayon and both methods worked well. If you had a larger background area you were colouring then I would suggest the direct to paper method, where you colour the area with the crayon directly onto the paper. If you were only colouring small areas, then colouring from the crayon would be much easier to control as you are taking the colour from the crayon to the paper.

These were considerably more expensive than the paints - costing about NZ $55 - 60 (from memory). If you are interested in these please let me know as I am able to buy these from my supplier and will certainly be sure to offer a very reasonable price to my blog readers.

Coloured pencils by Caran d'ache of Switzerland.

I bought these pencils 20+ years ago and back then each pencil cost from memory NZ $7 - $10. I have googled them and the can be bought from overseas in packs of up to 80 pencils. I'm not sure if you can still get them here in New Zealand - maybe if you search specialist art equipment shops.

I did see one price listed as up to USD $350.00 for a set, so this is definitely an investment that should not be taken lightly.

Result using the water colour pencils from the individual pencils.

L - R journal book paper, sketch paper, drawing paper, water colour paper (lightest weight to heaviest weight paper) 

The colour selection is amazing and I don't have every colour. I found these to be the most versatile medium and having looked at the brochure for them, there is still a number of techniques that I have yet to try. 

For more information including a link to the brochure of techniques look at the Caran d'ache website.

Once I had finished my colour swatches (for lack of a better name), I stamped a few images and coloured them in to get an idea for finished projects. I cut the water colour paper a size that would fit onto a normal card blank so I could use them at a later date.

Image stamped with Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black. These were from a set of stamps that I received free with a card making magazine.

This was coloured using my water colour pencils. I was able to get some quite subtle shading and blending of colour, though being a perfectionist, I think this still needs a great deal of work yet. I was able to achieve a range of intensity from very pale to quite strong which was good to see (as I appreciate that not everyone agrees with me about intensity of colour).

Stamp from KaiserCraft.

I coloured this image using the water colour paints. The photo looks a little darker than the finished product looks in reality though I have to confess that the colour is perhaps a little too intense given that each petal has a word in it and these are a little hard to see.

This was another craft magazine freebie. As cute as I think it is, it was really difficult to colour as the image is so small (only about 2" tall) so the small areas like the Christmas baubles and lights were harder to colour than I expected. Maybe with a little practice I might feel differently.

This was coloured with the water colour crayons using the colour from the crayon to the paper. Love the colours, even if my colour selection itself is a bit suspect (I was experimenting okay!!). I do like the blending I was able to get especially in the heart in the background. And the stamp was another freebie.

My final experiment was to test if I had any black pens that were water proof as an alternative to stamping an image with waterproof ink. I got this idea from watching an episode of Scrapbook Soup on satellite television. One of the two show hosts, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, is a huge proponent of water colouring and is one of the reasons I finally got my act together to try my water colours. You can see Julie's creations on her blog at Balzer Designs.  

I wasn't sure if I had pens I could use that wouldn't bleed when the water colour was added. I tried a number of pens and found that both the Slick Writer by American Crafts and the Zig Writer by Zig Memory System did not bleed when spritzed with water or coloured with water colour paint.

Best & Worst - Rub-Ons

One of my favourite embellishments to use on all projects not just scrapbook layouts are rub-ons, though I have to confess I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with them.

• I love that in general they are all so easy to use. You simply cut out the desired design, position it and rub it into place.
• I hate that there are exceptions to the general rule above... and that some do not seem to want to rub-off AT ALL no matter how hard or soft I try to rub them off the backing paper, no matter what tool I use either.
• I also hate those that come off TOO easily and when you open up the pack you find that they are now permanently affixed to the backing sheet and are therefore unusable.
• I love sheets of rub-ons where the manufacturer has squished in lots of designs onto one sheet including lots of small images because you feel like you are getting value for money as you can use them on so many projects. Or even better... two or more sheets in the pack!!!
• I hate manufacturers and retailers who skimp on their designs per page and then charge the earth for only a few rub-ons.
• I love that we can now find so many different coloured and colours of rub-ons, other than just black and white, though I still love these as well.
• I hate that I can't always get the colour I want, of the colour combination I want (okay maybe I am just getting picky now lol), though I do understand the high investment required by retailers if they have to or choose to stock a huge variety of products and colours. I understand when they choose only to stock the most popular styles and colours - it just doesn't mean I have to like it. And yes I understand that you can't keep 100% of the people happy 100% of the time.
• I love that some overseas designers and manufacturers are starting to cater for the AUS/NZ markets by including words spelt our way such as "MUM" & "MOM" and Autumn as well as Fall.
• I hate that we are still bound by US/UK seasonalities though for the majority of products. For instance most Christmas products are Winter themed and coloured, and most Winter themed products are also Christmas related. And what about countries like AUS & NZ who have temperate Winters... NO SNOW????
• I love manufacturers that include a rub-on tool/stick even if only a wooden Popsicle stick (and even though I now have hundreds of them).
• I hate manufacturers that assume you have hundreds of Popsicle sticks at home, so DON'T include a rub-on tool with their product. Not everyone is experienced with a HUGE STASH (like mine).
• I love that there is so much variety available... no longer just black letters. Now we can get different coloured letters, words, phrases, images, backgrounds, different materials, full pictures, components to make up pictures, scenes, all sorts of themes and combinations of all of the above.
• I hate that too often the images and phrases tend to be very generic. I wish more designers and manufacturers would cater to things/lives etc outside of the box. For instance - blended families, adoptions, tom-boys, Civil Unions (instead of just male/female marriage), unusual pets, women and girls who like cars (or trains for Miss Wendy) and not just for the boys... or maybe its just me who wants to scrap outside the box????

Question for you...

"What alternative theme would you love to see a manufacturer bring onto the market as a new theme for rub-ons or any other embellishment for that matter?"