Hello Friend: Thinking of You

Last week was sneak peek week and the new November release from Taylored Expressions. One of the new sets is Bubble Greetings for which I did a sneak peek with these two cards.  Then I saw the cards my creative teammate Noriko did (here) and all new possibilities opened up for me!!  LOVE what she did.  She took the big Bubble Greetings sentiment and added a smaller sentiment across the front.  (She also turned it into a gorgeous shaker card with a colorful background - be sure to check it out and be in awe.)  Here's my take on her use of a smaller sentiment strip.


I had a need for this card so I used "Hello Friend" and the smaller sentiment "Thinking of You" from the new set Friendly Phrases.  Noriko made a set of four cards with the four sentiments in Bubble Greetings.  Three of her cards used smaller stamps from Friendly Phrases.  For her "Thank You" she used a small phrase from In & Out Thanks.

I've been trying to branch out from my beloved Copics (mostly because I've had them for years; many of them are starting to dry out; and I've never invested in refills!)  I do have a small collection of Zig Clean Color Real Brush Watercolor markers.  I've not used them enough to be proficient - but they really are almost foolproof.  I drew a line of color across the top of each letter then used a waterbrush to pull the color down.  I struggled a little bit to begin with but while I was playing, I had various tutorial videos playing.  Jennifer McGuire has a variety.  Here's a link to her third post - under the video in the post are links to the first two videos. They are good to watch in order. Kristina Werner has at least one video in which she mentions that these pens are quite juicy and they quickly seep into some watercolor paper before you get a chance to watercolor them.  I found the same thing.  They didn't work for me on Tim Holtz' Distress Watercolor paper - but they were beautiful on Canson Cold Press Watercolor paper.  Kristina mentions Arches Cold Press Watercolor paper.



I have a passionate dislike of black embossing powder.  No matter how hard I try with powder brushes or dryer sheets or any of the other miracle cures - I always have stray black marks.  But embossing is very handy with watercolor because it keeps each section confined - it's like a little dam.  So I used my MISTI and I stamped the big sentiment in regular black ink (a couple of times).  Then I did it again right over the top with Versamark and used clear embossing powder!

Thanks to Noriko for the inspiration and Jennifer and Kristina for the lessons!

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