4 July 2024

More Distress Watercolor Pencils with Jenn

My Virtual Art Retreat Journey with Jenn Shurkus slowly gets blogged, about the same rate as me creating the cards. Again we have used Distress watercolor pencils to make our background plus the exclusive stencil Jenn designed and collaborated with Stuff by Belle to make for the event registrants. Ranger as well as being very kind and providing us with a jar of Slippery When Wet Lunar Paste also provided us with an exclusive Stampers Anonymous stamp set Jenn curated and resized from various SA/Tim Holtz sets.

This is the set we received this year, plus I have blogged TWO other cards using this set HERE and HERE.


For the first card we have used the pencils Salvaged Patina, Peacock Feathers and Uncharted Mariner for our Ombre effect background behind the stenciling/waves. We have used our fingers to dab small amounts of Distress paints directly to the stamps (Salvaged Patina, Uncharted Mariner, Saltwater Taffy and Walnut Stain) to make our own ephemera. We have used Distress Watercolor paper for all creating which Jenn provides in our kits.


We have used Distress Rock Candy glitter plus some white splatters to finish off. I actually cleaned of my stenciling with a slightly damp baby wipe, Jenn preferred to leave as is but I thought it was a shame to hide it.


The last card using this set is not at all nautical and uses the pendant stamp in the set and we have coloured directly to the stamp in a "rainbow" and then we created a stand alone Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide image which we have fussy cut out. I really like the grey on top of the watery rainbow pendants. 


Unbelievably no glitter just a few glitter drop gems from Pinkfresh Studio to finish off! The base card has had Distress inks in corresponding colours lightly blended around the edge too.


Well I have officially finished 3/4 of my kit box (approx. 9 hours down - 3 more to go) and I haven't used a Copic marker as yet and yes I still have more backgrounds that I have created with the Distress Watercolor pencils but finally my tins were able to be put away at this stage.

I have shared 5 of the 13 cards total in this kit so there's still 8 more to go and as you may know by now I love cute and there is lots of cute to come. Can't wait to share with you all another day ......

Thanks for popping in.
✿Karen✿

3 July 2024

Inspired by Tracy's snippet 74

For the latest challenge at AAA Colourful, their colour board has blue clouds with a tiny red heart balloon floating in it. Now quite a few of the DT and the entrants have already done the blue clouds plus red heart and I to be honest was thinking about an under the ocean themed card with a wee mermaid with a red tail; until I saw Tracy Evan's latest snippet HERE and I went wow this is perfect; I'll have a go with what in my stash.

I thought the colours of Distress Oxide she used were bang on and I have to be honest I haven't used Salty Ocean for ever but I thought it was the "right shade" of blue. So thanks Tracy and sorry mine doesn't look as good as yours but I'm loving the red and blue duo (and of course white) and I have to laugh Simon Says Stamps Monday challenge this week is Add Some Red/White and/or Blue and they are featuring AAAL and Create, the latter is not required to enter just the colours but all my stamps bar one are AAAL and Create stamps from when Tracy was one of their designers. She has now gone on to launch her own line of stamps.


Unlike Tracy I have just applied my ink using a rounded dome applicator and then spritzed with water I added some small text as it was too clean IMO. The stamped images have been fussy cut out.


Supply List:
Stamps: Periwinkle #987 (AALL), Art Notes #906 (AALL), Scripted Thoughts #595 (AALL), Containers #401 (AALL), Small Sentiment Bloom (WF)
Ink: Salty Ocean distress oxide (RNG), Candied Apple distress oxide (RNG), Morning Mist (Versafine), Versamark
Dies: Wonky Stitched Rectangle (MFT)
Other: Alabaster EP (BM), white splatter paint (SP), foam squares (SP), clear quartz solid sequin (GKD)
ChallengesAAAC#5, SSSM






EDITED 1/8/24: Happy to report my card made the top 4 at AAA Colourful.



1 July 2024

Beachcomber Class

I had a really enjoyable Saturday doing Jenn Shurkus' Beachcomber class with my friend Sarah who also loves all things Lawn Fawn. It was a really cool class as we used one tin (yes only one tin) of Distress Watercolor Pencils to do our backgrounds and all our colouring. 

We both made the error of stamping all the images first time around with Memento ink as we're so used to Copic colouring with Jenn. I was very fortunate that I hadn't actually die cut my images out or finished stamping when I realised. So I started again using a waterproof ink (Versafine Clair Nocturne). Jenn always uses Lawn Fawn's Jet Black ink which is both alcohol friendly and waterproof. I don't like how it stains your stamps, so I'm sticking to Memento ink for Copic colouring and Versafine for watercolouring and embossing.

All images have been stamped on the SMOOTH side of Ranger Distress Watercolor paper and all the backgrounds have been created on the same cardstock too.

We used tin three of the pencils and 11/12 pencils were used, only unloved one was Rustic Wilderness. This class is still available to purchase as it's a virtual class with videos and PDF booklet to download. The link above will tell you the supply list I had to be creative for card one as I didn't own Bayou Backdrop die and used a frame die plus some tropical vine border dies plus some seaweed diecuts (MFT's Under the Sea). For card two I replaced the radiating sun background with my Mermaid's Melody Cove coverplate from Alex Syberia.


It was quite hard inserting all the shells etc. behind the "seaweed" and I can see I have Distress rock candy glitter sticking to places where glue has obviously leaked whilst squeezing everything in.




Well another fab class with Jenn, her classes always make me so happy as they involve backgrounds and colouring!
✿Karen✿