May Gossamer Blue...mixed media cards

It's time to share some projects I created using the Gossamer Blue May kits.  I believe all of the supplies I used for today's cards are from the May Main Kit which is still available.  When you click on the link for the Main Kit, you'll notice that the colors displayed with the kit products shown are quite different from what you see in my product picks below.  

Tip: What I love about kits is that you can totally use to suit your style.  When I get a packaged kit the first thing I do is open the kit and flip through all the products.  I immediately turn the patterned papers over to which pattern I like best.  This helps me to get a feel for a kit.  Then when it's time to work on a specific project using that kit, I pick out a few papers at a time and a few embellishments, all in mixy matchy style.  I was totally able to keep my style in mind by choosing the floral paper, the whimsical polka dots, the bright green and some other mixed embellishments.  Give it a try, I think you'll get more bang out of your buck with your kits.  

Once I had my supplies spread out, I knew I wanted to create some cards.  I often will look at what supplies I want to work with then draw out a quick card sketch that incorporates those elements.  You'll see with my finished cards that I was able to stay pretty true to the sketch. 

 I'm all about altering items lately in an artsy fashion because I think it adds a totally unique look to your projects.  For my cards,  I chose to work with watercolors to alter some of the printed die cuts.  I used the floral patterned paper as my color guide and mixed up watercolors in my palette to match the pinks, reds, aquas and yellows.

 Next up I used Gesso from my Mixed Media Kit (now on sale in the shop) to brush on a swipe of white color using the small flat Studio Brush from the Mixed Media Kit.  You'll see on my finished cards what I plan to use the white space for.

 On the fun flashcards type die cuts from the Gossamer Blue Main Kit, I sprayed the water on top to dampen the paper surface.  I then used a round brush from the Mixed Media Kit and applied the watercolor.  I made sure to keep complementary colors away from each other so that I didn't get a muddy color mix.  The results was a soft rainbow mix of swirly colors.  This is a fun technique to try if you're starting out with watercolors.  If you'd like a stepped out tutorial, just let me know in the comments section.  I'd be glad to help you get started.

 I can't remember for sure but I may have need to swipe on the Gesso again to get a nice white layer of color.  Or you could totally do this part after the watercolor dries and not before.  So below you see what my rainbow painted tags look like against my inspiration paper. I like.

Here are the finished cards, my absolute favorites from all of my May Gossamer blue projects. You also see another mixed media card I created.  This got thrown into this photo and I'll do another post showing you how I used modeling paste from my Mixed Media Kit to create the fun sentiment area. 

 Here you can see that I used that fun swipe of white Gesso to create an area for an additional typed sentiment using my vintage typewriter.  I just got creative with other phrases that would make fun sentiments on my cards.  I followed my sketch and used buttons and enamel dots from the kits to add some accents.  The twine is from my stah.

 I love creating these bit notched pieces of patterned paper.  It's a fun way to create multiple, airy layers of several patterns.  I only stitched across the top of these pieces so that layers were kind of flippy, I like that look.  I also used a piece of simple grid paper as a base layer to add a bit more pattern instead of the stark white of the card base.

I really had a fun time creating these cards. I soooo wish I had more of that delightful floral paper. Okay, off to Jordan's softball game....I'm going to enjoy this marvelous sunshine and warmth.  :)