I’m a Convert

I may be preaching to the choir as the saying goes but, I’m a kit lover.  Now, I can’t say that I started out that way.  I thought, “what do I need with kits?  I’m plenty creative on my own.”  But that’s the thing, using kits doesn’t mean your less creative.  It can mean many things like:

• you have limited time
• you want to make several of something
• you like to have your basic materials prepped for you
• you are having an occasion for which you’d like to have a creative project for the group to make
• you need a gift
• etc.

For me, I enjoy the prepped materials and then challenging myself to see what I can do with the kit contents.

I opened my Watercolor Winter Simply Created Kit yesterday.

Amazing how much product is included in this kit!

So let’s talk about the watercolor part of this kit.  The die cut and embossed pieces are created from a highly absorbent material and meant to be colored.

I used a combination of ink refill and rubbing alcohol.  No specific measurements for this.  Fewer drops of ink refill mean a lighter shade, more drops makes a darker shade.

In addition to watercoloring with this mixture, I also mixed up a spritzer to use as the color goes on differently.

Since I was coloring trees, my ink refill of choice was Old Olive.

Here I’ve got a paint tray, the brush from the kit and a stencil created from the outside of one of the die cut trees.

The tree you see in this picture was painted with a sheer layer of the ink/alcohol mixture and left to dry.  Then I came back and added more color in the areas that I wanted darker.

Tip: Don’t saturate the paper!  Put on a little color and let it dry.  Then add more color, drying in between.  This will keep the paper elements from buckling.  If you’re in a hurry, you can use your heat tool to speed up the process.

Here you can see a close up of my two trees.  The upper tree was painted  while the one on bottom was spritzed.  As I spritzed, I allowed the ink to puddle in places to give the tree some added detail and texture.

As you can see, I removed the diamond die cut pieces from the trees. (They have been saved for future use.)  The holes were filled with Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my finished card.  The Cherry Cobbler striped card base is from the kit.  It’s followed by one of the woodgrain embossed layers.  I painted directly on it.  The spritzed tree was added with Stampin’ Dimensionals.  Then I popped out “happy” from the die cut sheet.  After adding it, I took my 1/8″ Circle Punch and punched three tiny, blingy circles from the “waste” to add to my card.

This was quick, easy, fun this morning.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Create something today,

Below are the products I used today.  Click the photos to get your own.