Magical Watercolored Holly

Hello Stamplings!

It's the middle of the week and the laundry is done, the ironing has been misted with water and rolled up in the basket, and the bread is warming on the sideboard. Annette is sitting at her desk using a newly-invented ballpoint pen to write out a few Christmas cards to send to her elderly aunts in the Poconos. Her little daughter is standing by ready to lick the three-cent stamps and stick them on the envelopes.

And that, my friends, was a visual of life in 1948. Fast forward 70 years and what does your day look like? Yes, the laundry is done, but most of us haven't ironed in years, nor made bread, and a postage stamp is fifty cents. Too bad about the bread bit because there's nothing better than a piece of freshly-made warm bread slathered with real butter. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to get drool on your screen. Here, let me wipe that up.

In spite of our modern day fast-paced texting technology, there are still a number of us who make and send Christmas cards for no other reason than the joy they bring to someone we care about. In the Playhouse workshop, we've got holly on the menu today, not just once ...

... but twice!

I used a new-to-me technique on these cards that Loll presented on her Powdered Inks With Versamark post recently. She found the technique on the Magenta blog here and now I'm passing it on to those of you who didn't see it on either of their blogs. Gotta love this sharing community in Blogland! I couldn't wait to use this NBUS Penny Black "Holly Sprig" stamp to CASE Loll's card. Okay, well, if you want to get technical about it, I shamelessly COPY'd Loll's card! Like her, I kept the cards QACAS by simply adding a sediment and splatters. 

As Loll explained, you basically ink up your silhouette stamp with Versamark and brush on your powdered ink crystals with a damp paintbrush. (Brushos work well, but I used Lindy's Magicals.) Then you spritz your stamp lightly and stamp onto either watercolor or mixed media paper. The Versamark makes the powder stick to the stamp and using very little water keeps the colors vibrant.

I love the organic feel of this technique, especially on leaves. The only touchup I did with the damp brush was to round out the berries a bit. The Lindy's have their own built-in winking, so instead, Hammy jumped on a paintbrush dipped first in diluted Magicals and second in glitter gold to create the splatters. Yes, that's right, he'll be schparkly until Easter, but we don't mind.

I loved the technique so much using this beautiful holly stamp that I stamped/stamped off several of them:

Challenges

Card one:

• Try Stamping on Tuesday: Column one. Green, glitter, stamping.
• CAS Watercolour Card Challenge: Christmas Florals and Greenery.
• Double Trouble: Thing 1: Christmas/Holiday/Winter. Thing 2: Double Dare: Combine with TSOT Challenge. Thing 3: Hanging items, which holly does.

Card two:

• 4 Crafty Chicks: Christmas.
• Jingle Belles: Mele Kalikimaka: Christmas florals.
• The Flower Challenge: Special occasion.

  

 

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by so I can be sure and return the flavor!

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