GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Gayatri Murali

Hey everyone, Gayatri Murali guesting here today. Wplus9 has been one of my top favourite company for it's designs and more so for Dawn’s colouring videos. Being a visual person I love learning through videos. Also I love, love all of Dawn’s floral themed stamp sets. I love the Beautiful Bouquet and the Modern series. I chose The Ranunculus and Modern Anemones stamp sets for my projects to share today.

I did some loose watercoloring here. I am no expert in watercoloring but I am not afraid to experiment. The loose watercoloring look appeals to me a lot and I can do that. So here is a video of how I made these cards using Zig clean colour brush watercolour markers. Hope you enjoy.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

I am working on using the traditional watercolour but Zig clean colour brush pens give me more control when watercoloring. It is ironic considering I did some loose watercoloring and there is no control needed for it. LOL! I used Bristol smooth cardstock to stamp and watercolour the images.

I love masking and stamping to make floral clusters on the background. But you could always use the Beautiful Bouquet stamp sets to avoid masking and stamping and takes less time because these sets are beautiful floral cluster already.

Spatters on the background adds to artistic feel to card. I love fine black spatters on floral backgrounds.They also add contrast and ties the other black elements together. Speaking of contrast, I love a nice contrast on, both are awesome on black cardstock. Also the watercolored floral images shows through the negative die cut which is beautiful and cuts through the big block of black panel. Similarly, the secondary sentiment from That is All stamp set is simply stamped in black on white strips of cardstock and adhered. The white Nuvo crystal drops also adds to the contrast and texture to the card.

Thank you so much to Wplus9 for giving me an opportunity to share my creativity. I feel privileged to your guest. Hope you are inspired by my projects and video.

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured Wplus9 supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase.

Wplus9 PURE COLOR Black Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Modern Anemones Stamps Shop at: WP9	Fabulous Die Shop at: WP9	Beatiful Bouquet: Ranunculus Shop at: WP9 | SSS | EH
That Is All Shop at: WP9

Watercolor Ranunculus Cards For Any Occasion with Yana

Hello friends! This is Yana and I hope you are having a fabulous week!

With Spring being just around the corner I find myself often reaching for floral stamps and watercolors. Today I'd like to invite you to join me and create several quick watercolor cards for any occasion.

I am using the Beautiful Bouquet: Ranunculus stamp set for my floral image today. This is a beautiful floral cluster that works great for many different occasions. I mentioned I will be watercoloring my cards, so I am using Arches Hot Press watercolor paper - it is smooth and is perfect for stamping when you plan to watercolor.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

For my watercolor paints I am using Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors - Sampler Color Chart. The one I have features 238 colors, each color is added as a little dot onto the paper. There's not a ton of paint in each dot, but there's definitely enough to try the color out and see whether you like it or not. And there's also enough to do simple, little coloring. I've had this chart for about a year now, I can't say I use it very often, but I do reach for it almost every time I want to watercolor something as I just happen to love the quality of these watercolors. What's great about this chart is you can test out the colors, pick those that you like and later buy them in tubes so that they will last you much longer.

But please don't feel like you have to use these watercolors, there are many great watercolor products out there, a lot of inks can also be used as watercolors, so use what you have on hand.

To create my cards I first heat emboss ranunculus bouquet onto watercolor panel using gold embossing powder. I created 3 projects to show different placement options for one image (similar to what I shared here) and I heat embossed partial images for each card.

If you've never done watercoloring before I have one advice for you - don't be afraid to try. And don't try to make it perfect. To me watercolor is all about having little imperfections, all about having a few missed spots or colors bleeding one into another. It's a way of relaxing and enjoying the process, so don't stress, simply color.

I used only 4 colors - Quinacridone Rose, Imperial Purple, Sap Green and Phthalo Turquoise. The last one, turquoise, was used to add a bit of color to the background. You can also try using peach and light gray to watercolor the background of your project.

After my coloring was done I added sentiments. I mentioned the ranunculus floral cluster works for many different occasion cards, so I stamped several - all with different messages. I used A Birthday Hello from the Hand Lettered Hello set, Thanks for the Gift from the Hand Lettered Thanks and Happy Mother's Day from the Strictly Sentiments 4.

I also did some subtle stamping on my card bases - I continued the floral design onto the card base using Fairy Dust ink. It's hard to see in photographs as the ink color is so light, but it adds a nice touch.

I’d like to encourage you to pull out your outline floral stamp and watercolors and do some watercoloring today. Have fun, play a bit and relax!

Have fun stamping!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of featured supplies (or equivalents) used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list does contain some affiliate links.

Wplus9 Beautiful Bouquet Ranunculus Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Strictly Sentiments 4 Stamps Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Hand Lettered Thanks Stamps Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Hand Lettered Hello Stamps Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Fairy Dust Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
WPlus9 Silver Lining Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor 238-Dot Color Chart Shop at: AZ	Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors Quinacridone Rose Shop at: AZ	Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors Imperial Purple Shop at: AZ	Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors Sap Green Shop at: AZ
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors Phthalo Turquoise Shop at: SC | AZ	Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Pad 9x12" Shop at: SSS | AZ	Zig Watercolor BrusH2O Detailer Shop at: SSS | AZ	Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun PW200 Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ	Versamark Watermark Emboss Ink Pad Shop at: SSS | HA | AZ
EK Success Powder Tool Applicator Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder PW100 Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ	Mini Misti Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS | AZ

VIDEO: Hello Beautiful! Rainbow Watercolor with Kelly

Hello Crafters! How was your weekend?

It was sixty degrees in January for two days straight. I feel like I won the lottery. It is going to go back to the lovely frigid snowy Ohio I know, but man what a great weekend!

Speaking of cold weather, this time of year I seem to struggle with my mojo pretty regularly. Anyone else have this problem? I don't know what it is, but January and February just sap my creativity. I can't live without my favorite hobby though, so I've come up with a few tips to help myself out.

First things first - use things you love. I make a little mental check list and then get to work. My go tos are one layer, brightly colored, floral cards. I like to try new techniques to mix it up some too. It usually takes me a bit longer to create something I love when it's different but it's almost always worth it.

For today's card I wanted a really bright loose watercolor background. Something fun and relaxing, no stress. :) You can see how I approached my stress free florals in the video below.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

I really love how easy this was to create. It didn't take a ton of time or planning, and I still ended up with a card I love. Isn't it nice when it works out like that?

hat are some of your favorite ways to break out of a slump? Let's help each other out huh?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of featured supplies (or equivalents) used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list does contain some affiliate links.

Beautiful Bouquet: Ranunculus Beautiful Bouquet: Dahlia Greetings & Salutations Whimsy Alpha Simon Says Stamp LARGE GRID PAPER Pack Pad SGRID1 The Color of Fun Simon Says Stamp Card Stock 100# BLACK Black8 EK Success WRITING PEN FINE TIP 55-30080 Inkadinkado EMBOSSING MAGIC Powder Bag 05847 Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK PAD Watermark VM-001 Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER WHITE Fine Detail WhiteEP2 Canson MONTVAL SPIRAL WATERCOLOR 9x12 Pad 7026761 Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET 15 X 18 Reusable NSC20677 Ranger Studio Paint ARTIST BRUSHES Brush BRU40842 https://www.simonsaysstamp.com/product.aspx?id=342224 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad PICKED RASPBERRY Ranger Summer TIM34995 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad WILTED VIOLET Ranger TIM43263 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad BLUEPRINT SKETCH Ranger TIM43195 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad MERMAID LAGOON Ranger TIM43256 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad PEACOCK FEATHERS Ranger Spring TIM34933 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad MOWED LAWN Ranger Summer TIM35008 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad FOSSILIZED AMBER Ranger TIM43225 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad CARVED PUMPKIN Ranger TIM43201 Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad CANDIED APPLE Ranger TIM43287 3M Scotch DOUBLE-SIDED FOAM TAPE Permanent Pretty Pink Posh SPARKLING CLEAR MIX Cupped Sequins *Pretty Pink Posh 4MM SPARKLING CLEAR Cupped Sequins *Pretty Pink Posh 6MM SPARKLING CLEAR Cupped Sequins Copic Sketch MARKER 100 BLACK Copic Sketch MARKER C5 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch MARKER C3 COOL GRAY Grey Copic Sketch Marker C1 COOL GRAY Grey

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