Farewell to the Open Sea!

I made this card today for my husband for his birthday. I used the set Open Sea, which will soon be gone! It's in the Summer Mini Catalog that ends on August 31st. I think it's a great 'must-have' set for masculine cards! And it has the awesome 'Nautical Expedition' Designer Papers that coordinate with it.

But one of my favorite things that I figured out while making this card was that Watercolor Paper is a MUST for watercoloring! I've watercolored plenty of images, and I've always tried to skimp and use our (awesome) Whisper White or Very Vanilla cardstocks (which they are THE BEST for stamping clean images). I guess I was being kind of cheap to not buy the Watercolor paper. But, man is it worth it!!

I'm definitely a student of watercoloring - meaning I'm no expert. But seriously, the Watercolor Paper makes it so much nicer! Put a little or a lot of color on your image, and the paper lets you move the color around. You can add more water to lighten it, or add more color to darken it. You can even add different colors on top of each other. It's very forgiving - you just gotta have some on hand!!


Thanks for stopping by,


Julie

Open Sea for Dad!

So, yep, here I waited until the morning of Father's Day to make Father's Day cards! Well, better on time (and I guess late for the one going in the mail!), than never!! I wanted to use the Open Sea set so it would coordinate with the Scrapbook Folio I made a couple weeks ago. So I'm CASing this one I found made by Renee Van Stralen, another SU! demo.

I love how this set is so classic, and you pretty much can't go too wrong with it! It's a great masculine set to have - what guy doesn't like something nautical? I just think it works for lots of male cards! And if you're going to buy the set, you gotta have the Nautical Expeditions Papers for the backgrounds.



The ship is so easy to watercolor (even for an amateur watercolorer like me!). And I made everything kind of vintage-y by sponging with Soft Suede.

Of course, my 'fav' linen thread is a cool easy "ribbon" for this card. And I had to finish off the top corner with some Espresso brads!


Hope you have a nice Father's Day Sunday!


Julie