Good morning! Even as a seasoned cardmaker, I enjoy enjoy learning tips & tricks from other crafters. My favorite tip/trick is to use artwork and fashion found on Pinterest as inspiration for my cards. You can find some really beautiful and unique color combinations, layouts, and technique ideas from fashion and artwork photos on Pinterest. I get a lot of help on floral layouts from looking at wedding bouquets and floral patterned clothes on Pinterest.
Today, the new Ellen Hutson Design Team is having a special blog hop to help introduce all of the new team members! We were supposed to use our “favorite-” medium, stamp set, colors, etc. I combined several of those to create this pretty watercolored card!
For my project today, I chose to create a no-line (almost) one layer card using some of my absolute favorite Essentials By Ellen products and Distress Inks for watercolors. I started by cutting a mask from the Mondo Hydrangea stamp set for the main flower, then stamping that same image again on some Arches watercolor paper using very pale gray ink. I placed the mask over the hydrangea, then stamped the leaves from Mondo Hydrangea and some of the smaller blooms and foliage from Mondo Peony using the same light gray ink. The nice thing about no-line coloring is that, even if your masking isn’t perfect and you get some overlapping lines (ahem, don’t look closely at my foliage in this next photo), you can still fudge it because those lines are mostly covered up by the coloring.
To watercolor the flowers, I chose to use a looser style of watercoloring, not quite so detailed as I normally would have done with my Daniel Smith or my Zigs… Distress Inks are a different animal when it comes to blending and shading, so you have to adjust accordingly. 🙂 I will list the different inks individually at the bottom of the post, but the main colors are Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, and Lucky Clover. I simply tapped them onto a piece of laminated card stock and picked the ink up with my paintbrush. For the shadows, I added in deeper shades of the same colors on the second layer for the shading, occasionally adding in some Pumice Stone to my color mixture to create shadows and depth.
The key with no-line watercolor is to work in sections that are not right next to each other. Watercolor a petal or two, then move to a completely different area. This helps to avoid the colors bleeding into each other, which also has the unpleasant effect of losing your crisp edges, and thus making your project a muddy mess. 🙂 After I had finished coloring all of the flowers, I allowed plenty of drying time before adding my halo of Wilted Violet around the edge of my bouquet. I added a few splatters with a flick of my paintbrush and added a few Nuvo Drops in Carnation Pink to help round out the bouquet and add some texture.
I trimmed down the edges to mount it on a royal purple mat and added a sentiment from Altenew’s Just Because stamp set heat embossed in white on navy blue card stock and popped up with dimensional adhesive. And that’s all for that project! Very loose watercoloring, but those bright Distress Ink colors really make those flowers pop off the page!
In the spirit of getting to know the new Ellen Hutson Design Team, here is a little info about me that you might not know:
~Coffee or tea? Depends on the time of day and the temperature outside. 😉 Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon. Sometimes iced, sometimes hot…. But I am an equal opportunity caffeinator.
~How did you come up with your blog name? Our first house was on Sixth Street. When I started blogging, I intended to blog about many different types of crafts, including scrapbooking, party decor, cardmaking, home decor, etc, so Sixth Street Sundries seemed perfect. Plus, I like alliteration haha.
~Tell us one silly/random/interesting tidbit about yourself! I have a master’s degree in vocal performance and have performed as the soprano soloist for Faure’s Requiem at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC! I am also pretty tall, 5’10″… which makes my last name even funnier!
Well, that’s all for me today! If you’ve never been to my blog before, I hope you have enjoyed getting to know me a little bit. I’m so happy you’re here! And for old friends, welcome back! This year is going to be fantastic, I think! Here are links the rest of my esteemed Design Team compatriots:
Ardyth Percy-Robb
Carissa Wiley
Carly Tee Minner
Carolyn Peeler
Elena Roussakis
Emily Midgett
Heather Campbell
Julia Stainton
Julie Ebersole
Justine Hovey
Kelly Griglione
Kittie Caracciolo
Laurel Beard
Lisa Adametz
Lisa Spangler
Lydia Evans
Michele Ferguson
Sandy Allnock
Sharon Harnist
Therese Calvird
Holy wow! This is absolutely beautifully amazing! What a gorgeous, lush little scene! So glad you be on Ellen’s team with you!
Always a delight to stop by, Emily … I’m still hoping that a bit of your genius swooshed out of the package you sent, and landed on me!
Stamps in your hands? magic always happens! So happy to be your compatriot! xx
=]
Positively stunning! So happy to see you on the EH team!
Gorgeous card. Thanks for all the helpful tips, you’ve inspired me to try the no-line technique again. My first attempt didn’t go so well!
Love your no-line watercolor technique! So pretty. Congrats on being on the EH design team.
Okay, I’m in love with this card!
such a pretty card – love how you colored it:)
Absolutely lovely … I like alliteration too … love all of the awesome inspiration
Stunning watercoloring, Emily. I love florals but haven’t tried to watercolor yet.😯. Thank you for sharing.
Gorgeous watercolor, Emily! So happy to get to know you better on the team!
This is such a beautiful card and I love this blog hop! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Gorgeous watercoloring, Emily!! ♥ I loved learning more about you, too. You sound so fascinating. (Is that a weird thing to say?) Thrilled to be designing with you and your amazing self. xoxo
That’s some pretty darn cool no-line watercoloring Emily. Honored to be on the EH team with you this year – can’t wait to follow along with your contributions.
So SO beautiful! I still admire my Emily cards regularly. 🙂 You are such an amazing addition to these team! PS I loved your random tid-bits!
Emily, your no line colouring is gorgeous, as is your card.
Emily, I am in awe of your water coloring skills. Your hydrangea card is absolutely stunning. I am so happy to be working with you on the Ellen Hutson team. We have such a talented group of designers and it is so fun to see all the different paper crafting styles.
Such a elegant, delicate, beautiful card. I have followed your work since I first saw it on a blog hop when I started my crafting journey last September. I do fine myself enjoying your work a lot. I look forward to getting to see more of your work and getting to know you more also.
What a beautiful card. Thank you so much for sharing with us.
Kennedy Center! BRAVA!!!!!! I am highly impressed!
(And chuckling, I love the irony of your last name 🙂 🙂 🙂
I haven’t dared try no line watercolor… yet!
ooh, I’m 5’11” (and a half), but don’t have the exciting surname to go with lol. I am so thrilled to be with you on this team and can’t wait to see what the year brings, your creations are always an inspiration!
Love your stunning card! Great no-line watercoloring, and awesome colors!
Stunning!!! I wish I could come over and watch you work Emily! So happy to be on the team together!
Absolutely stunning!!!!! I can’t wait to get to know you better!
WOW your colouring is stunning and the colours you have chosen is gorgeous. Congrats on joining the EH team. Hugs Jo
Such a pretty watercolor! I love this design
Stunning card with a beautiful color palette.
Gorgeous! And you can SING, too???!!!! So much talent! Incredible! If we ever meet in person, I’ll be the short girl with a little bit o’ plump! 😉