Welcome to Valley Oak Paper
I design handmade greeting cards.
Yeti Anniversary
I created a felt yeti with Rocky, the Dancin’ Yeti for his launch. But I also wanted to color him with Distress Watercolor Pencils. This time I created a friend for him. 💗
Blue Halloween
Today’s card is a watercolored Halloween card with a witchy little quokka. I’m starting by mixing the paint I need. Today I’m going to use my artist-grade watercolors. I’ve written down the paints I’m going to mix on this little palette and I mostly followed my plans.
Birthday Quokka
This is a pretty straightforward watercolored critter card. For my palette I was inspired by Palette 176 in the Color Cube volume 1.
Hello Pumpkin!
The scene I was visualizing needed a frame of some sort. After browsing through my Spellbinders bin, I selected a die set called Essential Arches. From this I used the 5th largest arch to cut out a piece of watercolor paper and a piece of Accent Opaque.
To give the scene some context, I used the Kat Scrappiness Scene Builder Stencil and my Distress Watercolor Pencils. I drew with the pencils along the lines, removed the stencil and added more shading.
Fintastic Sharks
The shark and friends are from a Lawn Fawn Stamp and Die Set called Shark Duh-Nuh Flip Flop. I colored them with my Distress Watercolor Pencils.
Watercolor Envelope
To go with my wobbling reindeer card, I’m making an envelope. The envelope dies I use are by Trinity Stamps. It’s a big die set, but you only need three of the dies to create a regular A2 envelope.
Tea-riffic Birthday
This is the card I’m creating in today’s video. It has this fun, wobbling effect, created with an action wobbler. I’ll give you tips for helping your mug wobble better in this video. I’m also using Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Pencils to achieve a loose watercolor effect when coloring.
Distress Watercolor Pencils 1
When I got the new Distress Watercolor Pencils, I took them all out of their boxes and rearranged them according to the order on the Ranger web site. In this video I’m swatching the first box, from Spun Sugar to Fired Brick.
Foiling Textured Paper
The best cardstock for hot foiling is the smoothest. But you can make your own smooth cardstock in a few simple steps.
New Cardmaking Watercolor Palette
I wanted to organize a new tin watercolor palette for cardmaking.
Single-layer gnome card
The adorable little gnome with her poinsettia is from Trinity Stamps’ From Our Gnome To Yours stamp and die set. Because it had to be a single-layer card, it took a couple of tries to get right.
Happy Lunar New Year
Here in Silicon Valley the Chinese New Year is celebrated almost as much as Valentine’s Day. Next year is the year of the dragon, so there are lots of dragon toys and dragon-shaped sweets in stores right now. The Lunar New Year is on February 10, 2024. Traditionally red and gold are associated with the Lunar New Year.
You Make My Heart Smile
For this card I used the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil Kit of the Month for December 2023. Getting a new toy to play with every month is just so much fun!
Duckling Cards
I started by laying out the dies on inexpensive watercolor paper and marking out how much space each of them would need. Then I colored the marked areas with Distress Crayons.
Floral Birthday Card
Tips for coloring flowers: Look for commonalities in the images. If you paint what’s typical, people will recognize the flower and your coloring will seem realistic to them.