September Leading Lady Carson Riutta | Take Two

Our September Leading Lady, Carson Riutta, is back for her sensational second performance!  If you missed her smashing debut you must see it...CLICK HERE.  Carson's dramatic flair is in full evidence with her brilliantly bold projects today!

Ladies and gentlemen, Carson.... 

Hello again, my Winnie & Walter friends!  I'm so happy to be back sharing another design and technique with you today.  But first I have a confession to make.  I love watercolor, but I often do not have the patience or skill to create those gorgeous watercolor florals that you see everywhere these days.  So I've come up with a quick and dirty way to create a similar look that anyone can pull off without leaving your chair to clean a brush or freshen your water.
 

Instead of classic watercolors, I use my Distress Stains for this technique.  I use a long acrylic block as my paint palette, a water mister, a paint brush and some baby wipes.  All of these supplies are within reach of my craft desk, which is key for me to watercolor.  If I have to go get a glass of water and some paper towels from the kitchen, then the process is over before I've even begun, yes, I'm really that lazy!  



I start by stamping my floral images from the stunning In Bloom: Addie's Garden stamp set in a waterproof black ink onto watercolor paper.  I love my Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink.  Then I squeeze some Distress Stain onto my acrylic block, spritz the stain with water to tone down the colors a bit and then I sloppily paint a lighter layer of color over my stamped images.  This "sloppy" technique only works if you're going to be cutting your images out with a die or scissors, once you are done painting.  



Next, you want to grab some darker color stain (less watered down) and paint it around your image while the first layer is still wet.  I chose to add paint along the stamped lines for the leaves and the roses while I added the color to the center of the daffodil.  As you can see, I did this rather quickly and without much precision.  This technique is so forgiving that you really can't mess it up.  Your results will be striking and bold no matter how precise you are while painting.

Once your florals are dry, die-cut them with the matching InBloom: Addie's Garden Cutaways and marvel at your gorgeous work!  Then find a way to use them on a cute card.  I love to play around with unusual card shapes and circle enclosure cards are some of my absolute favorites.  If you're adding a circle card to a gift, you can hole punch it and tie the card to the gift with ribbon for a super cute look!

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Don't forget to click over to my blog, Pineandplum.com, and leave a comment for a chance to win a $30 Winnie & Walter gift card! Winners will be announced at the end of the month, and remember if you comment on all of my Leading Lady posts over on my blog you can earn an extra entry for the drawing!

Happy Crafting!

Carson

In Bloom: Addie's Garden

Kindness with Evelin T Designs

Scenery: Into the Woods

In Bloom: Addie's Garden Cutaways

The Big, the Bold and Fun Cutaways

InLinkz.com

Hello Friend with Gayatri

Hello and welcome! This is Gayatri here today with a very colourful card to share with you. This card involved two of my favourite techniques - sponging inks and heat embossing. So much fun and colourful :)

I have stamped the images from In Bloom Addie's garden on white cardstock with versamark and white heat embossed the images. I then sponged distress inks - Seedless Preserve and Abandoned Coral for the Hydrangeas, Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn for the leaves and Squeezed Lemon and Mustard Seed for the foliage. Then used the coordinating dies to die cut them all out.

On the card base, I sponged Blueprint Sketch, Mermaid Lagoon  and Cracked Pistachio distress inks and spattered with water for get textured look. Then I clustered the flower, leaves and foliage on the bottom left of the card and glued them down. The sentiment is from The Big, the Bold and the Happy Cutaway which I die cut using black glitter cardstock. The smaller sentiment is from The Big, the Bold and the Happy stamp set which I simply stamped on a strip of white cardstock and adhered with foam adhesive. The card is embellished with sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

There are a few more gorgeous floral images in this stamp set and a couple more floral stamp sets at Winnie & Walter shop which will be perfect to make a variation of this card. You can also vary the colours to suit your liking to get more out of it.

Here are the Winnie & Walter products I have used on my card:

1. In Bloom: Addie's Garden stamp set.

2. In Bloom: Addie's Garden Cutaways

3. The Big, the Bold and the Happy stamp set.

4. The Big, the Bold and the Happy Cutaways.

Hope you are inspired by my card. Thanks for visiting!

In Bloom: Addie's Garden

The Big, the Bold, and the Happy

In Bloom: Addie's Garden Cutaways

The Big, the Bold and the Happy Cutaways

InLinkz.com

Centre Stage | Kelly Griglione

Happy Wednesday everyone - and welcome to a brand new feature here on the w&w blog!

Centre Stage is a fun exploration of the ladies behind the creative juices of all the fantastic creations you see on the w&w blog - The Talent! Each month we'll get to know each one of these special ladies that little bit more, dissect their style to find out what makes it unique, and show off some of their most amazing projects!

Let's great straight to it and welcome this month's artist...

Welcome to Centre Stage, Kelly! Let's get to know a bit more about her...

Kelly has been a member of The Talent since Winnie & Walter first set up shop. A mother of two, her roots are in scrapbooking (her kids are her favourite thing to photograph), but nowadays she spends more of her time wowing us with clever cards that stop us in our tracks!

Kelly has always been crafty, with wonderful memories of learning all different types of crafts with her grandmother at her kitchen table. Now a stay-at-home mother, Kelly's favourite thing to do with her kids is to play tourist in her home city of Chicago (I can't blame her - it's my favourite US city too!). BK (Before Kids!) Kelly had a career as a domain manager for a benefits consulting company. Her technical mindedness can still be seen in her precise, ingenious cards - you can definitely see her brain at work in all of the think-outside-the-box designs!

A few other little-known facts about Kelly are...

• she worked at the same place as Cindy Crawford in high school (she's quick to point out that it was pollinating corn in the summers, *not* lingerie modelling!)
• Kelly is double-jointed and can bend her thumb backwards (so -that's- how she manages all that clever card construction!)
• Kelly always said that she would never need a mobile phone. She finally broke down and got her first one (an iPhone) in May. Just three weeks later she cracked the screen and found it incredibly difficult just to part with it to be repaired!
• Kelly is a self-confessed night owl (just like me), and until recently stayed up until 3am-4am every night (we're both getting a bit too old for that now though!)
• she's a firm believer in having a sweet after every meal (a girl after my own heart)
• Kelly does not have pierced ears, and has never carried a purse (I guess it's not all that handy for crafting supplies!)
• As of mid-August, she had 189,63 photos in her Photoshop library (that simultaneously both impresses and terrifies me)
• Kelly absolutely loves rollercoasters, and last month went on the second tallest and third fastest steel coaster in the world (Top Thrill Dragster in Cedar Point Ohio)
• despite her husband's pleas, she has resisted the suggestion to return to work now that the kids are in school (he must be kidding, there are so many crafty things to do!)
• apart from her family, one of Kelly's main passions is a love of paper - both collecting it (19th Century Valentines/postcards/scrapbooks), and using it!

Now that we've got to know Kelly herself a bit better, let's get up close and personal with her style too!

Kelly's creations all share a common theme - they take supplies and apply a twist to use them in a totally different that most of us would never think of! Whether it's stamping with watercolours or constructing mindblowing 3D projects using dies, she wows us time and time again with transforming paper and cardstock into something spectacular!

One of Kelly's trademarks is the use of a panel of patterned paper to line the inside of her cards. She started doing this to use up some of her ever-mounting stash, but since then it's become of the instantly recognisable features of her work:

Another thing that's notable about Kelly's style is how she uses her stamps in completely different ways:

And don't even get me started on the jaw-dropping uses she finds for her dies...

Say what?!

I'm sure you're utterly dumbfounded by Kelly's work! Here are some of the w&w supplies she used to make the magic happen:

InLinkz.com

I hope you've enjoyed getting to know Kelly better, and feasted your eyes on her amazing creations! Please leave a comment leaving Kelly some love and telling us what you love about her work! We'd also love to know what you think of this feature as well! And if you'd like to see more of Kelly's amazing work you can always check out her blog too!

We'll be back with another Centre Stage next month!

Rerun No. 14 | In Bloom: Renee's Leaves (Challenge + Giveaway + Sale!)

Welcome lovelies to our next monthly Rerun!

Each Rerun will provide plenty of inspiration focusing upon a featured product, a month-long sale on the featured product and a challenge (with a prize!) and *all-new* giveaway.  You will not want to miss out!

For our fourteenth Rerun we are concentrating on In Bloom: Renee's Leaves.  This set is full of lovely leaves and other images perfect for autumn or any other time of year.

Now on to the cards!

Shay

I adore leaves as they are exceptionally versatile and beautiful. In Bloom: Renee's Leaves has excellent images to color in or leave as an outline.

I am in love with the patterned paper from Indigo Hills by Pinkfresh Studio (the whole collection) and it made for a sensationally easy and fast card.  I simply stamped the leaf several times in Versmark on the Sierra patterned paper and heat embossed it in navy embossing powder.  Using a brush and water I painted in the leaves using Tim Holtz Distress Ink in blueprint sketch.  I attached the patterned paper onto a white A2 cardbase.

I had a piece of grey cardstock from a previous project that I had cut out "celebrate" from The Big, the Bold and Party Cutaways and then I cut it out of out "celebrate" from silver cardstock and nested the silver celebrate in the grey piece of cardstock.  I attached it to the card using foam dimensional adhesive and added some white enamel dots from Twine +Ink.

That's it from me...wait until you see what our Special Guest Star, Emily Leiphart, Gayatri, Heather H., Keren and Lydia did with In Bloom: Renee's Leaves!

>>>SPECIAL GUEST STAR<<<

It just so happens that our friend Emily Leiphart created a card and video in honor of Laura Sterckx's 10,000 YouTube Subscribers Video Hop which is going on today using In Bloom: Renee's Leaves!



Isn't this card a beauty?  If you want to see Emily's video (it will go live September 5, 2016 at 8:00 a.m. CST), here it is:

>>>THE TALENT<<<

CLICK HERE to see more from Gayatri.

CLICK HERE to see more from Heather H.

 

CLICK HERE to see more from Keren.

CLICK HERE to see more from Lydia.

>>>CHALLENGE<<<

Now it's your turn to play along with Rerun!

1. Create a new project using In Bloom: Renee's Leaves (and/or the coordinating cut files).  An alternative to using In Bloom: Renee's Leaves (and/or the coordinating cut files) is to create a new project using one of the projects featured in this post (or any Rerun post throughout August) as your inspiration.  Make sure you use at least one (1) w&w product (this can include a freebie) in your project.  If you choose the alternative to using In Bloom: Renee's Leaves (and/or the coordinating cut files), please include in your post or project description which project inspired you and how.
2. Link up your project here by 11:55 p.m. CST on September 30, 2016.  
3. Enter as many times as you want before the deadline.
4. This Rerun Challenge may be combined with other challenges found here on the w&w blog or elsewhere.

One project will be randomly chosen to win $25.00 credit to the w&w shop!  The winner will be announced on the Giveaway Winners page or in it's very own post on the w&w blog.

An InLinkz Link-up

>>>GIVEAWAY<<<

Please comment on this post (make sure to include your email address in your comment--if you have to add your email address to your comment please do so by replying to your original comment) by 11:59 p.m. CST on September 30, 2016 for a chance to win your very own In Bloom: Renee's Leaves stamp set!