Guest Post: Stenciled Watercolor Feather Card with Natalie
January 21, 2015
Happy Wednesday! Just a reminder, tune into HSN on TV or online and watch me do a ScanNCut presentation at 1 pm EST and 10 pm EST today. Also, there are five seats left in my Stamp Carving 101 class on February 7 in New York City. I'm teaching at an extremely discounted rate for the Brown Club of New York, but those last five seats are available to anyone who would like to sign up. More information here.
Hello! It’s Natalie here, aka One Scrappy Doctor, waving at you from sunny Melbourne Australia (sorry if that’s just rubbing it in for all you Northern Hemispherians!) I’m super excited that Julie is letting me share on her blog today and I thought I’d take the opportunity to show you a little technique for creating some watercolour feather embellishments. I turned mine into the basis of a card, but these could be used for anything and everything!
To begin with I’ve taken a piece of smooth white cardstock and covered the entire surface with gel medium (you could also use clear or white gesso for this). I’m using a palette knife because it spreads it on quickly and in a nice thin layer. The reason for this first step is to make the cardstock more waterproof. Later on this will help the watercolours to blend more easily and stop the cardstock from warping too much.
Once it’s dry you can barely see it at all but trust me, that invisible layer will make all the difference. Next I’ve taken my favourite Peacock Feather Stencil and scraped on a nice thick layer of Texture Paste with my palette knife.
Because I’m making a card I need the feathers to be reasonably small so I’m using the 6x6” version of the stencil. I lift up the stencil and move it over so I can create even more. The white-on-white effect looks delicious and I ponder whether I should keep it just like that, but the colour-lover in me can’t resist the temptation to splash on some bright hues!
My watercolour medium of choice at the moment is the Peerless Transparent Watercolor Papers because I love how easy and mess-free they are. But you can obviously use any kind of watercolour, or any kind of paint for that matter, the point is to get a whole bunch of colour onto those feathers. Make sure to go right to the edges, or in fact, paint beyond the borders of the feathers because when we cut them out you probably don’t want any white edges.
Allowing time for drying is always the most boring part isn’t it? Certainly feel free to cheat and use a heat gun to speed it up! Next I’m adding some glitter. Everything looks better with glitter in my opinion. And because we all know how difficult cleaning up loose glitter can be I’m using some glitter glue instead. A couple of different colours of this doesn’t hurt either. I literally just smear it on with my finger.
I’ll be honest, I’m not the world’s most patient and particular fussy-cutter. Near enough is good enough for me. But I’ve managed to cut out 9 whole feathers here with my fine scissors and it wasn’t too tedious. And that’s the embellishment part done. Now it’s up to you what to do with all of them.
For me I’m now turning them into a quick card. I start with a blue card base and layer a piece of white swiss-dot cardstock on top. I begin with positioning a few of the feathers near the top and I stick them in place.
My sewing machine is one of my go-to tools for practically every project I do. Not only is it part of my signature style, but I use it because I feel more secure that things won’t fall off down the track. So I sew each of the feathers into place with a simple line of thread down the middle. I keep on layering on more feathers until the whole card is full.
I left just enough space to add a simple sentiment. Nothing too distracting because I want those peacock feathers to be the main focus. I figure this is one of those all-purpose cards that could work equally well for a thank you or congratulations, or so many other occasions.
Supplies:
  |
Natalie hails from Down Under in Australia and has experienced the best of both country and city living in her time. She’s the lucky wife of The Trophy Husband and the mother of The Elphie Kids – two girls aged 8 and 5. She currently works full time as a doctor specialising in Obsteterics and Gynaecology but uses any spare time to create crafty messes instead. However, their world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of a baby boy in March!
Natalie is a Contributing Team Member for Studio Calico, one of the Jot Magazine Girls, and part of The Makers Collective. She blogs about all her adventures at One Scrappy Doctor, but you can also find her sharing on :
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/natalieelph
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onescrappydoctor
- Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nati/