Hurricane Watercolor Technique Video + Giveaway

So I just had a quick trip to Santa Fe, where I got a little taste of what we call winter in the southwest/

It's not really winter, and I can say that as a native New Yorker, and someone who did hard time in upstate NY in college. 

Cool, bone dry, high desert temperatures are a huge blessing. Bone chilling, wet, grey weather not so much. Even in Austin it's too wet to enjoy cooler temps. 

But no matter where you are, that first nip of winter/fall/whatever you have is fun. Change is good.

I just got done with my retreat, where we did eight fun techniques over two days and ate gourmet food and generally off-gridded ourselves for three days and it was wonderful.

I usually sneak peek one or two of the techniques we do so you know how much fun we have, and that's what I'm doing today with the new release from Hero Arts!

My retreat dates tend to coincide with our biggest natural disasters in Texas - not by design! But I like Memorial Day and Halloween dates, and those two dates happen to be very dramatic in the weather department here. 

Since we have had a few rough hurricane seasons leading up to the fall retreats for two years, I decided to do a technique I call hurricane wrap, that I actually took from a 4H cake decorating technique I learned in middle school. I actually won a blue ribbon for a Neopolitan cake I made in 4H - unrelated, but fun trivia. It had this yummy dark chocolate glaze and was the colors of Neopolitan ice cream in layers in the cake. Which is funny because I can't stand Neopolitan ice cream. BUT ANYWAY - that is the inspiration for this first card - and I have a video for this below. The medium I used is infusions (colors listed below) - which I love to the moon and back.

It was the perfect backdrop for this adorable gingerbread man stamp. I stamped him in Fadeout ink and colored him with Copics on Spectrum Noir marker paper (I love this paper).

I cut him out with the matching dies and used the sentiment from the same set.

Here's my quick video on this fun technique! (PS - the stencils I used in the other samples for the other technique in this video - you can get 10% off with code LYDIAFAN10 here - all stencils are linked below.)

Also, in a fun coincidence - today is the kickoff of the Splitcoast Falliday Fest - which is our ten day challenge and tutorial blitz for the fall holidays, and my next card is for my challenge today, which is - HUGE SURPRISE - to make a holiday card where blue is the dominant color.

I first stamped this food themed background cling stamp in Blue Belle in my MISTI. Leaving the stamp, I over stamped it a few times in Blueprint ink and then activated that with my water brush. The Versafine makes for a super clear image, and then the Distress ink makes for the perfect watercolor.

I used a 1" strip of the marker paper to stamp the turkey from this bundle on, and then colored it and stamped the sentiment from this set.

 Now the next card - I have to tell you - IS A LIE. You'll see why. But before we get to the lie, let's enjoy the die that I used to make it from the main kit - it's glorious! Here's what the kit looks like with this die included.

It's a paper layering door die and it's glorious. I die cut it with Fabriano Cold Press watercolor paper, and painted it with Daniel Smith Watercolor. This door - minus the lamps and the wreath, looks exactly like my front door, so I painted it accordingly. I used Piemontite watercolor for the brick, and on the card front, I Copic colored the areas behind the lamps and the eyebrow window - which is exactly what we have. Our front door is black, so that is how I colored it. Plus our peephole is way too high, just like the one on this door - HA!

 Here's the lie part. I love this sentiment in this companion add-on set, but seriously - if you come over without telling me and ring or knock, I'm going to feel super murdery. I know that was okay in the 70s, but it is so not okay now. DO NOT DO THIS. My door is always open to you if you give me like three months' notice and if I'm still feeling peoply. Just saying. But here's what the card looks like open - the door on the die opens and is amazing. I colored the inside of the door black too. The doorknob and mail slot are colored with these awesome metallic markers.

 So in a companion to the first card, I took the girl gingerbread cookie from the set in the first card, and used the die for the boy gingerbread man and made a fun missing you card! The sentiment is from this awesome, distressed floral set.

 Sometimes, I like to go back to basics when I feel like I need a classic holiday card. So when I saw this image, I knew what I needed to do.

I had just stumbled across this awesome new podcast featuring Rainn Wilson, and I thought I'd take this gorgeous image of a pile of presents and use my Elegant Writer pen to color it while I listened to the first few episodes. I LOVE this pen because you just draw lines with it and then use a water brush to paint it out and it separates it into beautiful pinks and blues.So nice to use one pen to get a multi colored image from a single pen in a quick minute. I had stamped the image onto cold press watercolor paper in Acorn before adding the marker. Then I cut it out with the matching dies, and glued it on the card front. The sentiment is from this set.

The kit this month is AMAZING - the perfect holiday kit scene builder. I went totally crazy with masking the images in the set to create the scene. I colored it with Copics (colors below), and then used post-it tape to mask off the floor and the "wallpaper" that I created with this stencil and my LCBB.

 Finally ,I made a fun gift card holder. The die is here, and it just happens to hold a tag or card that is slightly bigger than a gift card. I used this stamp and die set to embellish it, after die cutting the Merry Christmas into the front of the holder.

For the insert, I used the sweet partial cut die from this same bundle to cut the deer that's peeking out, and used this hilarious sentiment set to finish it off from this snarky holiday sentiment set. There's no reason to lose your sense of humor just because it's Christmas, after all. I rounded the corners of my insert with the 1/4" side of my Crop-a-dile.

Turns out, those geniuses made the insert size just bigger than a gift card, so I attached that to the back of it with the same glue dots I use to hold my watercolor pans into my palettes!

Here's everything I used today!

November 2019 My Monthly Hero kit [ HA ] ALL the Add-Ons - get them all [ HA ] Feast Cling Background [ HA ] Christmas Gingerbread Cookies [ HA ] Christmas Gingerbread Cookies Frame Cuts [ HA ] Snarky Christmas Messages [ HA ] Mountain of Joy [ HA ] May Your Home Be Filled With Joy [ HA ] Holiday Meal Stamp & Cut [ HA ] Decorative Poinsettia Frame Stamp & Cut [ HA ] Gift Card Holder Fancy Die [ HA ] CM260 Hero Florals Rose Stem | Hero Arts [ HA ] Ornate Floral Stencil 6x6 [ HA ] Big Damask - A Colorful Life Designs [ CLD ] Reindeer Names - A Colorful Life Designs [ CLD ] HeartFlakes - A Colorful Life Designs [ CLD ] Life Changing Blender Brushes. 4 Pack... [ PFS ] PaperArtsy Infusions - A Bit Jaded... [ JGG ] Paper Artsy SUNSET BEACH Infusions... [ SSS ] Paper Artsy GOLDEN SANDS Infusions... [ SSS ] Tsukineko VersaFine Clair BLUE BELLE... [ SSS ] Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad BLUEPRINT... [ SSS ] Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ] Speedball Elegant Writer Calligraphy... [ BLIC ] Spectrum Noir Metallic Markers (6pk)... [ CRF ] Spectrum Noir 9x12 Premium Marker... [ CRF ] Water Brush Pens - Set of 6 | ARTEZA [ ARTZ ] We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile -... [ BLIC ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Zots™ Singles • Medium | Therm O Web... [ THR ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

As usual, they are having a giveaway today with this kit release, so leave me a comment to be entered to win a $50 gift card to spend however you want!

And don't forget, you can get the add-ons bundle at a discount, and the kit is also at a huge discount - it's $81.50 worth of stamps, dies and accessories for $34.99.

I always feel nostalgic about the November kit, because that's the month their first kit came out three years ago. It was their test kit, and I got to participate in the launch - it was a gorgeous poinsettia kit, so I was happy to see a poinsettia this month. I remember being in awe of the quality of the kit and how generous it was, and it's just been getting better and better ever since.

Do you stamp each holiday - like Thanksgiving? I always see Thanksgiving as the week I start making Christmas cards and fruitcakes, so I like taking full advantage of stamping Thanksgiving images when I can so I don't feel rushed into Christmas.

That's all for today, little turkeys! Thanks for stopping by! More inspiration awaits!

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