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

GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Copics + Colored Pencils w/Emily Midgett

Good morning! Emily Midgett here from Sixth Street Sundries, back today for a guest post for Wplus9! For today’s post, I wanted to show how you can get a little extra mileage from your coloring supplies.

I recently made the mistake of selling off a good chunk of my Copic collection (silly, I know), so I’ve been doing some improvisation in order to achieve my shading goals until I can get my collection built back up. For today’s post, I combine my somewhat limited Copic collection with my full Polychromos collection to create dramatic contrast, shading and depth on the gorgeous Hibiscus Bouquet stamp set.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

The technique demonstrated in the video uses Copics as a base layer for my Polychromos pencil shading. You can use this technique whether you have just a few Copics or an abundance… it really is great for stretching your supplies.

I start by stamping the Hibiscus Bouquet on some white card stock with Copic-friendly black ink, then coloring the image with Copic markers to lay down that base layer of bright color. After the Copic coloring was completed, it was time to go back in and add layers of color using my Polychromos pencils. (You could absolutely achieve similar results with Prismacolor pencils.) Because these pencils require many layers of color to achieve a smooth, saturated finished product, adding that first layer of Copic coloring really helps cut down on the amount of time spent coloring. Another bonus: the super sharp points of the colored pencils allow you to get in every nook and cranny on a more intricate image like the Hibiscus Bouquet.

After I had finished coloring the gorgeous Hibiscus Bouquet image, I fussy cut it with some very sharp scissors, then turned my attention to the card base. I used Wplus9’s Little Piggy ink to stamp that fantastic geometric background from Tropic Fever onto a white card base. I then used the Fierce and Fabulous stamp and die set to create the greeting, using the negative portion cut from navy blue card stock for a fresh, preppy color combination of pink, white, and navy. The hibiscus flowers with that bold geometric design reminds me of Lilly Pulitzer!

After I’d adhered everything to the card base with foam adhesive, some of the foliage from the Hibiscus Bouquet was still hanging over the edge a bit, so I trimmed it off and added it to the bouquet. After spending so much time coloring, I wasn’t about to let any part of it go to waste! I filled in the bouquet, helping to slightly alter the shape of the bouquet so that it curved around the edge of the greeting. The final touch was to add some Midnight Blue Nuvo drops.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you enjoyed this project, and maybe will try out adding some colored pencil to your own Copic colored images. Thanks again to Dawn for having me as a guest… such an honor

If you liked this project, be sure to check out my blog for lots more flowers colored in many different mediums! Have a marvelous day! ~Emily

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.

Little Piggy PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Tropic Fever Shop at: WP9 | SSS | EH	Fierce And Fabulous Shop at: WP9	Fabulous Die Shop at: WP9
Hibiscus Bouquet Shop at: WP9

GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Lea Lawson

Hi WPlus9 friends! Lea Lawson here, and I am super excited to have a guest post on the WPlus9 blog today! I’m a big fan of WPlus9 stamps & dies and can’t wait to share my projects with you today!

One of my favorite things to do is mix my older items with newer items to freshen them up! I took a fairly long break from the crafting world to deal with personal things in my life, which left a lot of beautiful items I purchased unused. For my cards today I have combined Beautiful Bouquets: Ranunculus with the following items from the two newest releases: the Trellis Background 1 Die, the Fierce and Fabulous stamp set, the Fabulous Die, and the No One Else stamps and companion die.

I started by stamping the flowers twice onto white cardstock, then applied watercolor loosely to them. I wanted to see the difference between two watercolor mediums, so I used watercolor pens on the first card and liquid watercolor on the second. I felt like I was able to get the loose watercolor feel better with the liquid watercolor than with the pens. Once the watercolor was dry, I applied shimmer to them with my Wink of Stella glitter pen and then fussy cut them.

Then I applied a pink & aqua ombre wash of liquid watercolor to panels of white cardstock. Once it dried, it was time to do all the die cutting. I die cut the word "Fabulous" from the pink wash, the phrase "Thank You" from the aqua wash, and the Trellis Background from white cardstock twice.

Next, I stamped & heat embossed the rest of the sentiments in white on black cardstock and trimmed them into thin strips. Finally, it was time to start putting the cards together. I added glitter paper blocks to the front of two A2 card bases, then mounted the trellis backgrounds to them with foam adhesive.

I added the die cut words to the front of each card, using the opposite color of the glitter paper. Then I added the watercolor florals to each corner. I covered the die cut words to protect them while I added some black paint splatters to the front. Once the splatters dried, I finished by adding the rest of the heat embossed sentiments to the card fronts. And finally, I added my signature jewels tucked here & there.

I hope that you liked my cards today, and that I inspired you to break out some of your old with some of your new!

Thanks for joining me today! Have an awesome day!

~Lea

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 White Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Black Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Beautiful Bouquet: Ranunculus Shop at: WP9	No One Else Shop at: WP9
No One Else Die Shop at: WP9	Fierce And Fabulous Shop at: WP9	Fabulous Die Shop at: WP9	Trellis Background 1 Die Shop at: WP9