Enjoy Coloring?

If you enjoy coloring, I have the perfect stamp set for you!  As a child, I loved to color and when my children were little, I enjoyed coloring with them in their coloring books.  Guess that was the creative side of me trying to get out and express itself with different colors.  Remember getting those big boxes of crayons with 60-something different colors in it?  No stinking little box of 8 crayons for me!  And they had to be Crayola.  I'm not sure what the other brands were but they just weren't the same.  Now you can get a custom box of 64 crayons where you can pick your colors.  That would be too many choices for me!!  I prefer the Classic Colors and let someone else pick!

When I first saw Lighthearted Leaves in the Holiday Mini Catalog, I was not impressed.  (How many times have I said that?!!)  But when I started seeing the beautiful cards that were made with this set, my mind was changed.  I think I told you that in this post using Lighthearted Leaves.

For the following cards, I tried a new technique using the Woodland embossing folder. Emboss a piece of Watercolor paper with the Woodlands Embossing Folder.  Next rub the Embossing Buddy over it.  Using a VersaMark pen (or squeeze some VersaMark Reinker out and use a paintbrush), go over the trees with the Versamark ink.  Pour white embossing powder over it and heat set the trees.  Next  wet your paper and watercolor by using your Aqua Pen and the ink squeezed into the lid of the stamp pad..  The colors I used were:  Pool Party, Cajun Craze, Hello Honey, Soft Suede and Pear Pizazz but use your imagination.  As you can see, they all come out differently.  Go over the trees with Early Espresso and get some dark ink on them a little bit.  When you are pleased with it, let it dry.  (I am impatient and used my heat gun on front and back to dry.)  After it is dry, rub the Embossing Buddy over it again and use VersaMark ink and stamp a few leaves from Sheltering Tree and emboss them.  I embossed one of the cards below with Copper embossing powder (retired from SU) and the other two with Gold powder.

Next stamp a few leaves onto Vanilla card stock from the Lighthearted Leaves set with VeraMark ink.  Emboss with gold (or copper).  Color them and mount them in the corner of your card.  I just loved coloring these leaves with my markers.  Here are the close-ups of the leaves:

Lighthearted Leaves Watercolored

What a looonnnng day!!  We had the alarm set for 4 a.m. but somehow the volumn was turned down and I didn't hear it until 4:30.  Five hours sleep for a gal who needs her 8 (and sometimes plus!) is not good!  But we had plenty of time and got to the hospital about 5:30 - 15 minutes early (and that included my stop at Dunkin Donuts for my Mocha Coolata and donut.  They took Sonny back to surgery about 7 and were real good about keeping me informed several times during his surgery.  The surgeon came out around 10 to tell me all had gone well and he was in Recovery.  He arrived upstairs in his room a little after noon - really groggy.  He slept just about all day until about 5:00.  The Physical Therapist came by about 3 and took him on a short walk.  It's funny how different this hip replacement is from his other one in June.  He was a lot more alert after the other one.  He also is having a little bit more pain this time, but nothing drastic.  He is so uncomfortable in the hospital bed and ready to come home.  When I left him tonight, he was sitting up in the recliner chair.  I'm just hoping he doesn't try to get in the bed by himself!  He wanted me to leave the walker near him but I didn't.  He is not supposed to get up without the nurses assisting him.  I'll be going back in the morning and hopefully, bring him home around lunch time.  When I got home tonight, Sammie was sure happy to see me!

I love to color and watercolor so that is what I did tonight while watching the Country Music Awards.  (I love me some Blake Shelton & Luke Bryan!!)  When I first looked through the Holiday Catalog, I was not impressed with the leaf set, Lighthearted Leaves.  But I have since changed my mind after seeing so many great cards using this set.  I just received the set along with the Leaf Framelits that correspond with the stamp set last week and finally had time to play with it tonight.  I stamped the image with Versamark and embossed the image.

This first one was watercolored using the ink in the top of the stamp pad and my Aqua Pen.  The colors I used were:  Elegant Eggplant, Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss.  I embossed the image with Copper Embossing Powder (which SU does not carry any more but I have a whole jar left and I like it!)  !The DSP on the card is retired also.)

I LOVE this card!!

So I decided to try it in reds.  This card uses Cherry Cobbler, Real Red, Watermelon Wonder and Rose Red.  This card is embossed with gold powder.  The paper is really, really old - retired several years ago.

What do you think?  Which one is your favorite??