Sometimes you just need to relax and color!

Hi friends! We never get too old to color. I think that is why stamping is so popular, we get to be a kid again but this time we get better art supplies (unless you are my kids who get to use all of my stuff LOL!) It was funny, my children (10-year-old twin girls and 12-year-old son) have been on a color by number kick and commandeered my Spectrum Noir pencils to color the intricate designs. They know how to treat nice supplies and so I let them 🙂 I like to see art supplies being used. Don’t let them be too precious that you never use them! I was having a rough time painting day the other day and I realized it was because I was really trying to come up with a nice watercolor tutorial for you guys that I was forcing the process, nothing was working and finally I gave up and decided to color this image: I did not attempt to narrate it, I did turn on my video camera in case (despite all other efforts that day) in came out OK and it was really happy with it. The image tool about 17 minutes to color and the card took 4 minutes to make. I sped it up for the video, hope you don’t mind. Video!

Supplies:

• Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens
• Tombow Blender
• Archival Ink in Black
• Fully Content House Mouse Stamp from Stampendous
• White colored pencil
• Tile or plate for scribbling markers on
• Watercolor paper
• Cardstock and pattern paper
• Seam Binding/ribbon
• Bow Making Jig: My hubby makes these out of beautiful hardwoods, if you want to order one you can email me at artstudiosofbangor@yahoo.com with “Bow making Jig order” in the subject line. They are $20 plus shipping (USA Priority mail $6, First Class Canada $10, Everywhere else $15) Let me know where you want it sent so I can apply the correct shipping.

You can use whatever watercolor markers you have for this technique. You can substitute watercolor paper for cardstock but it does not always blend as nicely, I’d test on a scrap of you cardstock first so you don’t waste it. Above linked products are from Hallmark Scrapbook, I am an affiliate there and if you click a link and make a purchase I receive a small portion of the sale.  Oh! They also have all of their We R Memory keepers Punch Boards on sale for 50% off, $9.99 each! And I was thinking of this because I need to make a custom envelope for this card and I could not believe they were all so cheap! I love the envelope punch board because you can make boxes and bows with it too. I am thinking about grabbing the flower punch board while it is on sale, what do you think? Have any of you used it? I like to use flowers on projects and it looks fun! So, the next time you are feeling stressed do a little coloring! I have a new real-time watercolor tutorial filmed and it will be up in a few days, I guess I just needed to chill a bit before that would happen. 😀 Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!