Hey friends! How are you all coping? It’s weird, how, everyone remembers exactly where they were on 9-11 when they heard the news, or what they were doing when they heard Michael Jackson died, but does ANYone remember the very first time they heard the words COVID-19? I don’t. For as huge an impact as it’s having, it has truly crept up on us I think.
One of my favorite ways of coping is crafting. Happily, we could be quarantined for decades and I wouldn’t run out of supplies! Today, I’m virtually joining a group of friends for an old-fashioned scrapbooking crop, done in the new-fashioned way of Zoom! And Simon Says Stamp is hosting a United We Craft party as well which I’m delighted to be a part of! It’s such an encouraging thing when, even though we are restricted from many of the things we would normally be doing, we can still connect with friends, actual and virtual, and create beautiful things!
For today’s party, I used the Simon Says Stamp Mandy’s Flowers stamp set and masked the two outside images in order to stamp a collective image.
Then I sat down to color and paint. I used Faber Castell Watercolor Pencils and a water brush to color the images.
The wonderful thing about painting with pencils, is the ease you can take, layering down a little bit of pigment in the corners and shadows, taking your time, considering color blends you’d like to see. For example, the leaves on the Ranunculus in the middle, have 3 very different colors on them. I achieved that by coloring different parts of the leaf with 3 different pencils, then letting the water brush do the work of activating and blending the colors in a pleasing, no-pressure way.
After coloring the stamped images, I used my palette of Daniel Smith watercolor paints to add in a foreground and background. Then I added speckles of black paint after the card was dry.
I stamped a sentiment from the Mandy’s Flowers Stamp Set with Versafine Onyx black ink. I trimmed the top of the card to allow a strip of coordinating blue cardstock to peek out and balance the color along the bottom, and adhered everything to a folded card base.
Easy, relaxing, enjoyable. The best way to spend an hour these days!
Since it’s not a blog hop, I don’t have a link to send you on your way, except to tell you to check out the Simon Says Stamp blog for the complete list of crafters joining in today! United We Craft! When you create something and post it online, don’t forget to add the #SSSUnitedWeCraft hashtag so we can see and be inspired by what you’re making!
Thanks for stopping by today and have a great weekend!
