Coffee and Watercolors

 Hello Crafters! 

Happy weekend! We made it!

This week has been busy, busy, busy here on the ole' blog. I hope you found a ton of inspiration when you visited. While I was busy celebrating the new WPlus9 release (p.s. it's in the store ready to come find a new comfy home with you!)  two different blog hops kicked off that I really wanted to participate in. 

The first is Pretty Pink Posh's Watercolor Blog Hop

There are so many wonderful goodies up for winning including some from WPlus9. That Dawn's pretty awesome. Love her! 

I love that one of the requirements to win is that you leave at least 5 comments on the other participants projects. Gotta spread that love!

The second hop is the Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop

Somehow I missed the spring hop and I wasn't missing this one! I NEEd my coffee and have to celebrate it as often as possible! Again lots of goodies to be won! In fact the set I used to create my card is one of the things you can win. Christine at Create A Smile is so generous. Love her too!

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Alright, let's get to it!

Summer = Beach. 

That's just the way it is in my head. 

Every vacation we take we're heading to the beach. It only seemed fitting to combine my two loves. 

I stamped the large mug from Coffee First onto watercolor paper using WPlus9's Black Pure Color ink. It's archival and perfectly safe for watercoloring. The original image has stripes on the mug. I wanted something a bit more beachy so I just masked them off before stamping.

I wanted to give the illusion of a beach scene in the background. 

I added lots of water to the bottom left corner and then dropped in distress inks with my paint brush. I used mustard seed, vintage photo, walnut stain, peacock feathers, salty ocean, and chipped sapphire from bottom to top.

 Once that was dry I drew in a wave design onto my mug. I love zentangling, it's so fun AND it can completely change the look of images you already own. 

I colored the waves and mug with copics. Let me say the archival ink is not copic friendly. However, Dawn's ink bleeds considerably less than other archival inks I've tried and I was very careful not to bump the edges with my markers. I added bits of white gel pen to the waves for strong highlights. Don't forget to outline your image with a black pen, it really sets them off!

The sentiment is a combination of Coffee First and other Create A Smile sets. 

Who doesn't want sunshine and coffee?! 

I can't wait to hop around and see what everyone made! 

Thanks for visiting!

XoXo