Welcome Friends! It’s July and our hop is all about techniques used in cardmaking. What is your favorite “go to” technique? I love to watercolor images but I must say there are so many new techniques emerging in the world of papercrafting, it is hard to choose. On to the cards…

Card #1 ~ Pissy Kitty
This kitty is hilarious and too adorable! Looking at this cat just makes me laugh and I never get tired of it and yes, I love coffee!

Paper Piecing I stamped this image on patterned paper and cut out the mug. Next I stamped the entire image on watercolor paper and watercolored in the hilarious cat. I stamped the sentiment in black and a fun coffee stain image in espresso. Then I found a piece of bright orange cardstock and scribbled red and orange watercolor crayons across areas to border the image, I applied water to create a fluid effect. I ruffed up the edges of the image and adhered it to the orange cardstock and adhered it to a kraft cardbase. Finally, I added die cut floral embellishments by Poppystamps.

Who can resist a face like this?!
Card #2 ~ More than Ice Cream by Tracy Malnofski for Unity
The sweetest truck and a joy to color! I can even hear the music playing. In my neighborhood the ice cream truck can be heard from a few streets away and our kis would scramble to collect their money to buy a treat.

Watercoloring is my favorite coloring technique at present. It is not exact and for me, it’s relaxing, forgiving and carefree. Also watercoloring is fast to color in an image for a quick card.
To create this card, I stamped the truck on watercolor paper. The paints I used are the MozArt Komorebi watercolor paints. I love the metallic white paint on the truck. Also I love to paint using two colors on one image, for example the ice cream, the stars and lights, the window covering.

I glued the image to a patterned paper card front. I previously die cut the paper with a Gina Marie Designs stitched border. I stamped the sentiment and mounted it on a scrap of painted paper and again on watercolor paper. I glued it to the base of the image. Finally, baker’s twine finish the card.
Card #3 ~ Addison Girl by Angie Blom for Unity Stamp Co
A beautiful girl ready to go out and celebrate. Her dress is gorgeous, she is living her best life.

No Line Coloring is a technique of coloring an image so that the lines disappear and the effect gives the image a more realistic look. A light ink is used to minimize the outlined figure. My coloring is a loosely based version of this technique.

I stamped the image with Tim Holtz distress ink. I used Victorian velvet, a nice light mauve, that would blend nicely with the skin tones and hair. I am a novice at this technique but I love how the image is somewhat transformed in a unique way. Next I stamped the sentiment in Versafine grey ink, overlapping the image. I die cut the cardfront using a Gina Marie Designs border die and adhered it to a dark charcoal cardbase. Iridescent, glitter and metallic sequins embellish the card.

Thank you so much for visiting. Please continue on the hop. I hope you find lots of inspiring ideas!
Until next month, keep creating and enjoying the summer sun!
Rachel
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