Challenge #9 - More Inspiration

Hello Squashettes!!  Gail here today with a little more inspiration for our current challenge, use a nature themed embossing folder and watercolouring.  Some gorgeous makes in the gallery already, but still plenty time to join the fun.

Today I'm using a beautiful 3D folder from Sheena Douglas called Wisteria Wall.   I love the way Sheena tends to combine soft and hard elements together in her designs.  I am not really a flower person, but when I saw the riveted sheet background behind the lovely wisteria I just had to buy it.  The sale price helped me along as well........

I am so pleased how this turned out.  I smeared distress inks on my craft mat, spritzed generously with water, then I used my water brush with added bling to watercolour the embossed design.

I embossed a normal pale grey thin card sheet with the folder and used Wilted Violet for the flowers and Evergreen Bough for the leaves.   You can be quite accurate with placement of colour on the embossed areas, as I tried to be with the leaves.  The flowers I was more splashy with, and after I had finished painting I still had some colour on the mat so I just kept loading it on to create very pleasing shades of violet. 

I used very very dilute Stormy Sky and gave the background a watercolour wash.  I love how the embossed areas suck in a bit more ink giving automatic shading.  Cool and very easy.

I sandwiched my panel in an old book to dry and flatten out.  One cup of coffee later and it was ready to mount on a 9x7" card base.  I trimmed a smidgen off the side and added a pre-printed sentiment strip from a Kort og Godt patterned sheet.  It says Good Friends are Worth Their Weight In Gold.  Well, you are, aren't you.  

Thanks for dropping by.  We hope you feel like getting squashy and splashy with us this month.  Linky closes last minute of the month so still plenty of time to sit in the shade and watercolour a masterpiece.  Hugz

Challenge #9 - Inspiration

 

Hi, it's Jo here with a little inspiration for Challenge #9 -  Nature meets Watercolouring.

For my card I used Darice Embossing Folder Bold Daisy, which seems to be out of stock everywhere I've tried to link to. Such a pity as it's a gorgeous folder.

The die cut and sentiment are from Simon Says Stamp set You Matter. 

This card was very quick and simple to make and just involved smooshing some Distress inks, spraying with a little water on the EF and running it through my Cuttlebug. 

We've already got some beautiful cards in the gallery but, as always, we'd love to see more people play along with this fun challenge!

Challenge #9 - Nature and Watercolouring

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the 9th challenge here at 

Let's Squash It! 

Let's Squash It! is The Embossing Folder Challenge.  We are gonna help you explore the world of the not so humble embossing folder and encourage you to dig 'em out, knock the dust off and find old, new and fun ways to make your projects pop.

 

We have an awesome team to keep you entertained and awesome challenge themes to stretch your creativity and get you using all those long forgotten and neglected embossing folders.  

For those of you who are just tuning in you can check the previous posts for the story behind the genesis of the challenge and the technique time posts for awesome tips and techniques to help you make the most of your supplies and folders.

Challenges start on the 10th of the month and run to the last day at 23.59 GMT.  We will be picking top picks and a winner, who will have a chance to be our guest designer for a future challenge.  There is a little prize on offer for a randomly selected winner and these will all be announced on the 5th of next month.   

So, Challenge #9

And this month's theme is

Use an embossing folder with a Nature Theme AND Watercolouring

 

Use a nature themed embossing folder ie flowers, trees, animals and use water with your colouring medium, eg watercolour paints, watercolour pencils, Brusho powders, distress inks.  Check Gail soggy technique time post for ideas on colouring.  Please make sure you include both parts of the challenge on your card and also check da roolz to ensure your entry will be eligible for the random prize draw!

 

We are very pleased to have our Let's Squash It!! Empress joining us as our guest designer this month.  Please welcome Marlena from Marlena is Faithfully Crafting.

"Hi my name is Marlena McDeavitt. I have the honor of being a guest designer at Let's Squash It. My online name is Marlenaisfaithfullycrafting at blogger and I've been creating since 2011 as faithfully as I can! I'm a Jesus follower, mother of three young ladies and wife of a supportive husband. I'm surprised I've stuck with one main craft (stamping) for so long! I wasn't sure how long I'd stamp cards, since I like to try new crafts now and again. I feel the stamping community has been so supportive and the market is always evolving, so there's room to grow as a designer. Thank you for having me here!"

 

Here's what Marlena made:

 

A gorgeous close - up

Marlena's Card uses
Darice Embossing Folder - Dotted Tree

 

And here's some inspiration from the team...…

 

Gail's Card uses 

Gemini Embossing Folder - Butterfly Effect 3D

 

Jo's Card uses

Spellbinders Embossing Folder - Shell Beauty

 

Please do check da roolz to make sure you will be in the running for da prizes.  

This months randomly selected winner will be able to choose a prize from the

Let's Squash It! Prize Vault

 

Now it your turn!

Grab your embossing folders and watercolours and join the fun.

We are looking forward to seeing your cards.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Technique Time with Gail - June 2021 Colouring Techniques

  Hello Squashettes!

Gail here today, a little later than planned, but hopefully it's worth the wait...........

Today I want to talk about colouring techniques, in particular using watercolours with your embossing folders.  I'm gonna call this my squashy sploshy period....

The easiest thing to do is probably to smear your folder with a water reactive ink, such as distress, spritz and send that baby through the machine.   This gives you a nice background colour and leaves your embossed image white, or whichever colour your card was to start with.  In my case I started with a grey woodgrain card and went a bit crazy with the water, so it's not as clean and well defined as I am sure it could be, but for my 'Thinking of You' card it works for me.  I used Sizzix Bird embossing folder for this card.

You can also use watercolour paints and a brush, or water reactive pens/pencils to colour parts of the folder design.  Here I embossed Sizzix Cockerel Frame and used some tri-paint colour sticks I have.   I used a waterbrush to pick up colour from the light green colour stick and painted the embossed area of the frame.  Then I wet the colour sticks and applied colour to the embossed outline of the bird and then to the debossed areas inside the bird, spreading the colour with my water brush.  

 

You can also try some resists to keep your embossing pristine and give interesting effects.  Embossing powders and wax are good to use with water based colours.   I used Brusho wax sticks here and Brusho powders for a blast of colour.  These wax sticks are like colourless crayons. 

I embossed Nellie Snellen Ball Flowers on white card, used the wax sticks on the embossed texture, sprinkled the Brusho powders where I wanted my colour and spritzed with water.  This gives a much more random effect to the colours, but love that wax resist.

Here I've used the same wax resist with Sizzix Groovy Flower folder but I mixed my Brusho's with water first and used them as watercolours to fill in the embossed design.  This gives more control on where the colours end up.

I hope I have given you a few ideas for using watercolours with your embossing folders.  Drop back on the 10th for a fun new challenge with Jo and I and our awesome guest.   See you then.  Hugz

Winners and Top Picks for Challenge #8

  

Hello Squashettes!  Gail here today to announce the results of Challenge #8.

So many gorgeous entries and so many different ways of solving the challenge.

We'd like to say a thank you to Riet for joining us as our guest and creating such lovely cards.

But you are here for the winner and top picks aren't you?  So let's get to it......

Our two runners up, impressing us with their fabulous squashing are:

Sally

 

 

Love that gorgeous embossed frame

and

Jules

Three adorable designs!

 We hope you'll wear your badge with pride!

Our top pick and winner of our Empress of Squash award,
(with a chance to guest design for a future challenge) goes to:

Tina

Gorgeous embossing and so striking with the big red roses.

Here's your badge and well done on being our Empress of Squash.

We also have our random draw prize to award!  

Mr Random says the lucky winner is......

  

#7

 

Tina

Wow, double skills Tina!  Please email me at craftynomad@gmail.com with your address details, and also let me know which folder you want from the prize vault.

Thanks again to Riet for joining Gail and me for this fun challenge, and a very big thank you to everyone who joined the fun. Our next challenge is due to start on 10th May, and don't forget to check out the Technique Time teaser on Saturday 8th. Hope to see you there!  Hugz