Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Hello with Heather P.



Hi, everyone! Heather P. here, and I'm posting on the Winnie & Walter blog today to share the card I've created using one of my favorite W&W floral sets and a bright color palette perfect for summer! :)

To create my card, I started by trimming a piece of watercolor paper to 4 x 4", and then stamped it with several of the flowers and leaves from In Bloom: Addie's Garden in Versafine ink using a masking technique.  The stamped images were then covered with clear embossing powder and set with a heat tool.  The images were then colored in with a mixture of Zig Clean Color Markers and Distress Markers in shades of aqua, purple, coral and green.


I then used the In a Word: Hello Cutaway die on white cardstock and gray chevron patterned paper to create the focal sentiment.  Once die cut, the pieces were glued and stacked together before adhering the sentiment to the card front.  To finish up my design, the stamped image layer was adhered to a medium gray card base using foam tape, and I embellished with white enamel dots. 

That wraps it up for me today, thanks for stopping by! :)

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Saturday, August 27, 2016

August Leading Lady Nina-Marie Trapani | Take Four

Sadly August is coming to an end which means it is our last Saturday with the tremendously talented and astounding Leading Lady, Nina-Marie Trapani.  The last four weeks with Nina-Marie have been brimming with invaluable inspiration, tantalizing techniques, terrific tips and dazzling design.  Nina-Marie's attention to detail, depth of knowledge and artistry are truly exceptional.  I feel fortunate for Nina-Marie sharing her amazing talents and skills with us this month!

If you missed her smashing debut you must see it...CLICK HERE or her sensational second performance adding a personal touch and artistic flair CLICK HERE or her triumphant third performance showing her mastery of design principles CLICK HERE!

Lucky for us all we have her final command performance today.  

Hello friends! Today is my final Leading Lady guest post for Winnie and Walter... how sad! But I had so much fun sharing my ideas with you and I hope you have been enjoying it too!

  Nina-Marie_Trapani_august2016 

Today I have a watercolor card to share featuring my favorite Winnie and Walter stencil, Scenery: Pattern of the Rings; I've also paired this stencil with the In a Word: Hello die, and the Big, the Bold and Comfort stamp set. Inspiration for me comes from EVERYWHERE... literally. I laugh because once I got a brilliant idea for a card (or at least, I thought it was brilliant, haha!), while I was watching a TV commercial during an NBA basketball game! The idea for this card is from a painting I saw Instagram this week and I was immediately taken by the bold, warm colors and large design. 

While mine may not have the gorgeous florals this painting by Calligrafikas has, I love how the finished card turned out!

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I used Distress Inks to do my watercoloring on this card, as I wanted to make sure I was able to incorporate some water splatters to the design. I started off by taping the stencil to a piece of watercolor paper and coloring in the circles of the stencil with a mixture of Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon and Festive Berries inks. As I painted in each circle, I did not clean my brush much (and sometimes not at all) as I switched between the colors because I wanted them to create new, in-between shades.

Watercoloring With Stencils + Distress Inks_1

The diamond shapes between each circle in the stencil came next; I watercolored those with a mixture of Seedless Preserves, Picked Raspberry and Wild Honey. I was careful not to mix the Wild Honey and Seedless Preserves too much on this round because they would just turn to a muddy color. But I allowed Seedless Preserves and Picked Raspberry to mix, along with Picked Raspberry into Wild Honey, and I love the variation in colors when you mix the inks!

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I also made sure to use very little water as I painted with the inks; this not only gave me super rich, pigmented colors, but it also kept the water from migrating under the stencil too much. Once I had removed the stencil when I was finished the watercoloring, I spritzed the panel with my Distress Sprayer (and then dabbed them up with a dry rag) to get the fun water spots.

Because the background of this card is SO bold and intense, I wanted the rest of the card to be simple and a bit on the "graphic" side... the clean lines of the simple design helps balance the visually-heavy colors in the background.

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The Hello die is cut from white cardstock and my sentiment from the Big, the Bold and Comfort stamp set is heat embossed in white onto black cardstock. A final finishing touch included a few Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear sequins.

A BIG BIG thank you to Shay for asking me to be the Winnie and Walter August Leading Lady; I had such a great time sharing card ideas, tips and tricks over the past month and I hope I was able to give you some new techniques to try on your projects! Thanks for spending some time with me everyone!!  

GIVEAWAY!

w&w_30giftcard

Before you go, I want to tell you that Shay was SUPER generous in allowing me to giveaway a $30 gift certificate to one of you, which can be used in the Winnie and Walter store! How cool is that?? BIG thank you to Shay for being so sweet!

To qualify for the giveaway, make sure you leave a comment on any of my Winnie and Walter blog posts (commenting on each Saturday post this month will count as extra chances to win the giveaway). After this last Leading Lady post, I'll draw a random winner from all the collective post comments.
 

PRODUCTS


Friday, August 26, 2016

Reminder to Join In on Rerun No. 13 | In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet with Joni Andaya

Happy Friday lovelies!

I wanted to give everyone a reminder of Rerun No. 13 | In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet with Evelin T Designs.  We have a giveaway AND challenge which are open until the end of August.

For the original Rerun No. 13 | In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet with Evelin T Designs post CLICK HERE.
For Vanessa's take on Rerun No. 13 CLICK HERE.
To see Kelly's second take on Rerun No. 13 CLICK HERE.

Also, I want to give a shout-out to the challenge entries so far because they are awesome!

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We would love to see your project too!  For more details please CLICK HERE.

Happy creating,
Shay.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

August Leading Lady Nina-Marie Trapani | Take Three

Our August Leading Lady, Nina-Marie Trapani, is back for is back for her triumphant third performance!  If you missed her smashing debut you must see it...CLICK HERE or her sensational second performance adding a personal touch and artistic flair CLICK HERE. Nina-Marie
 shows her mastery of design principles today with a showstopper of a card!

Without further ado, Nina-Marie....

Hello friends! Welcome back to my third guest post for Winnie and Walter's Leading Lady feature... I hope you are having as much fun as I have so far! :)
  Nina-Marie_Trapani_august2016 
Today I want to share some inspiration on creating appealing card layouts using Winnie and Walter's In Bloom: Addie's Garden and In Bloom: Anna's Flora stamp sets. The reason I chose these floral images for today's card is because floral images are a great example of building a good layout; a poorly arranged flower bouquet isn't as pretty as one that was more thought-out. These floral stamps are some of my most favorite because of the beautiful detail and larger size of the images. This allows you to get creative with your coloring, which is so much fun! For this card I used a combination of Zig Clean Color markers and Copics to color the flowers and leaves.

  Creating Floral Arrangements_2

When building a good floral arrangement, I like to make sure I build with a few things in mind:

Rule of thirds: It helps to balance a design when there are three elements grouped into your card. For instance; I maintained this rule by using three frames in the background, three daisies, and three pink floral clusters. The odd number sits better in your mind believe it or not!

  Creating Floral Arrangements_5

Visual triangle: See how all of the major elements on this card all can be connected by a visual triangle (imagine overlaying a triangle to connect like objects together)? This helps draw attention to the more prominent elements and allows them to take center stage while still maintaining a good balance. Examples of the visual triangle are the layout of the frames in the background as well as the placement of the daisies and the pink clusters.

  Creating Floral Arrangements_1

Balancing Large and/or Bold Objects: This card features two heavy (large/bold) objects; the largest daisy and the strong colors of the sentiment strip. These two items can be balanced out on the design by placing them at polar opposites. In this case, I attached the daisy at the bottom left and the sentiment along the top right of the card. By placing them apart from each other, rather than close together, this helps keep the design from being too heavy in one area.

  Creating Floral Arrangements_6

Odd Numbers: Remember the rule of thirds and how odd numbers helps the design of the card sit better in your head? Well the same applies for numbers greater than three! I scattered a total of 7 clear sequins around the floral arrangement, as well as having a total of 13 larger elements on the card (12 floral elements and 1 sentiment strip). Having that odd number really ensures a good layout! 

Mixed Sizes: You'll also notice that I varied the size of almost all of my elements on the card. This helps add a bit more interest to your design, as it keeps everything from becoming too boring and repetitive. If you can vary the size of the elements on your card, this helps keep the visual attention of the viewer.

  Creating Floral Arrangements_4

This may seem like a lot of work and thought to put into a card, but remember you don't have to incorporate them all into your card all at once; I wanted to make sure they were each included in the design so I could best show you how they work together to create an overall appealing design. And trust me; the more you practice these design tips, the more you'll start doing them automatically. This is how I started; I had to remind myself of these things as I created a card, but now it's just part of the design process for me and I do it on "auto-pilot" so to speak! And I know that the more you practice these things, the more you will start doing them automatically too! 

Before I go, I'll quickly touch on the rest of the card process: 

I stamped the images onto watercolor paper with a waterproof ink and colored the images with Zig markers. I then went back in with a couple of Copic markers and added in a bit more extra detail. I layered the flowers and die cut frames onto my card base using liquid glue; I added the sentiment (heat embossed on dark brown cardstock in white embossing powder) using foam tape. The sequins were then tucked in and around the florals using some Glossy Accents

I hope this post has helped you learn some new tips and tricks on creating good layouts on your cards! Thanks for spending some time with me today, I will see you again next week! :)  

GIVEAWAY!

w&w_30giftcard

Before you go, I want to tell you that Shay was SUPER generous in allowing me to giveaway a $30 gift certificate to one of you, which can be used in the Winnie and Walter store! How cool is that?? BIG thank you to Shay for being so sweet!

To qualify for the giveaway, make sure you leave a comment on any of my Winnie and Walter blog posts (commenting on each Saturday post this month will count as extra chances to win the giveaway). After the last Leading Lady post at the end of the month, I'll draw a random winner from all the collective post comments.

PRODUCTS