I love the New Year! I’m always filled with excitement about the possibilities for the upcoming year, and every year I’m wide eyed and hopeful, no matter what the previous year has brought.

I’m back in Japan after a fabulous 2 weeks in Australia catching up with family, experiencing the heat. (43ºC on our last day – that’s 109ºF for my USA friends) and now it’s 8ºC as I write this in my little desk space in Tokyo. What a change!

So what does this year hold for me? Lots of growth I hope, in lots of areas. Some kind of flow to my days that is manageable long term, and also lots of crafts and friends.

I’m excited to have been asked to stay on as part of the Paper Rose Design team for 2020. This is an Australian company that is really developing some gorgeous products that I’m proud to be associated with. So each month, you will see a few posts from me featuring this Paper Rose stamps and dies. I’ll add links to the Paper Rose shop for the products I use, so that you can find them. These Paper Rose links are not affiliate links – I don’t receive anything if you use them, but I think it makes it useful for you, my readers and crafty friends to find things easily.

Too much talk, Donna! Let’s get to the card!

To make this card, I first stamped the bird from the Bird Day stamp set in a pale ink, and water coloured it in layers, starting with the lightest of washes, then building colour up as I went. I used my MISTI, and left the stamp in it so that I could go back and restamp when I was done colouring. When I restamped, I used Versafine ink, which is water resistant. I inked the face and feet well, and left things a bit sketchy on the wings and chest.

I then used masking fluid and painted over the bird. This fluid protects the image underneath from getting wet. Once the fluid had dried, I wet the whole panel and dropped in Payne’s Grey watercolour paint to give a stormy sky. I thought that a darker sky would best fit the sentiment that I was planning to use. Some splashes of paint in Payne’s Grey and white completed the sky, and I could then remove the masking fluid by rubbing it with my finger – an incredible satisfying job, which held memories of rubbing glue off things in primary school!

Once the sky was dry, it was time for the branch. I stamped the branch from the Christmas Poinsettia stamp set in pale ink, and then water coloured over the top of the pale image, leaving gaps where the bird’s feet were. You could paint the branch freehand I’m sure, but I don’t even trust myself with this simplest of jobs, so a stamp was the answer for me.

The sentiment was stamped in Versafine ink in Onyx Black. Because watercolour paper is so bumpy, I once again used my MISTI, and stamped it two or three times to get a solid impression, before colouring a few places on the word friend with a black marker. The sentiment is such a sweet picture of friendship – I love it!

Finally, I cut the image down to just smaller than my card, and stuck it down, aligning it with the top left of the card. No reason – I just thought it would make a break from my usual centred panels.

I hope that 2020 is an absolutely fabulous year for you all. I look forward to sharing my crafty adventures. If you liked this card and would like to see more, feel free to visit my Instagram feed, where I post a lot more cards than make it to my blog.

Until next time, may your days be crafty (and free of fires and smoke if you’re in Australia right now)

Blessings,

Donna