CAS Watercolor Holiday

My CAS Watercolor Holiday card features a Stampendous poinsettia with a PoppyStamps diecut.  

Once again, I used my Peerless watercolors to color the poinsettia that I stamped and heat-embossed.  After painting the flower, I dry embossed it with dots, and then accented the image in gold and clear Wink of Stella. The "merry" diecuts are from metallic gold cardstock, which is getting a lot of use this Christmas season. (My photo is not good because the dark rainy day provided no natural light.)

Gold Embossing for the Flower Challenge

Today, I finished one card and made two more. The "one-in-progress" was for The Flower Challenge. I've had almost a month to complete the challenge, but just couldn't get started. A week of visiting family (5 adults, a baby, and a dog) kept me away from crafting, but I made up for it today.  

The Flower Challenge this month requires embossing, either heat or dry.  I chose to emboss in gold and then watercolor the tall poppies from Hero Arts.  Two shades of watercolor pens provided the color. I finished the card by edging the flower piece in gold Krylon pen and adding the "smile" diecut, which I also colored in gold.  One addition that might not be obvious is gold spritz over the embossed piece.

Freshly Made with Fresh Blooms

I was so tempted to use hearts like the sketch for this week's Freshly Made Sketches---I have some pretty dies that would work.  Instead, I chose an oversized Stampendous flower (Fresh Bloom) to heat-emboss and color with watercolor pens and an aqua pen.  The sentiment is one of three "fancy" ones I own.  

Less is More with Thread

Less is More ---Does black space count as white space?  I tried to evaluate whether my card is CAS according to the examples on the page, but I'm still not certain.  However, I'm posting my "thread" card, anyway.   I rather like it.   (It's a tall card that will require a special envelope.)

The thread is copper, marking the flight of the coppery butterfly.  Copper is repeated in the heat-embossed sentiment.  

Less is More with More Than One Tree

It's a theme challenge this week on Less Is More: "more than one tree."  I can't believe how much difficulty I had arriving at this very simple card.  The trees and sentiment are heat-embossed in white and a pretty Cuttlebug embossing folder provided the design on the side.

It's Metal

"Metal" is the theme for Less is More this week.  Although it doesn't photograph well, my card  features a tag layered with metal flashing tape embossed in a folder and painted with black acrylic paint, which was then wiped off the flat surfaces. (This technique is from Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 101 course.)  Green metal was diecut for the foliage accenting the black and white flowers.  The sentiment is an old Dream Impressions stamp.

Tone-on-tone colors

The idea for this card came from a GinaK video, in which she used a Copic marker to color a flower white-embossed on cardstock of the same color.  This is "Dahlias" from Penny Black (flower and sentiment) that I white-embossed and colored with an SU marker. A center portion of the flower was stamped and embossed again before being popped on foam dots.  Tiny pearl are the accents.

Creative Chemistry101 Day 7

Embossing powder was the center of attention in this session.

Distress Powder Resist               Rusted Enamel                   Nostalgic Batik