Here we are in Week 3 and the odd thing is it's starting to feel normal! Hope you are still bearing up. Without further ado, here's my card....
I've had these stamps for a while and one evening a few weeks ago, along with a whole load of things, I decided to colour them in. I struggled to get the right browns, but I did a lot of blending and came up with something that seemed to work! I'm enjoying making all things sunshine and rainbows at the moment, so I decided Mr Mole would be popping out of the ground to look at the glorious sunshine. He might have bad eyesight, but he can still make out when it's lovely and sunny.
The sun is keeping me going and it's almost Easter, so the sun is bringing a whole load of hope to the world.
A quick one from me today, but sending you all the requisite virtual hugs and a reminder in these times to keep on crafting :)
Gosh we could do with lots of sunshine at the moment! What a different route life has taken us over the past couple of weeks. I was adjusting to having the girls around and they were adjusting to being around, but not able to go out and see their friends, so I didn't manage to post anything last week. Week 2 of social isolation is going slightly better. I have closed the Etsy shop for the time being as I'm not comfortable going out to the post office. I may in a few weeks reopen and do weekly post office drops. I'm also more into a routine with the children and negotiating some time for me with my husband. As he's the main bread winner and can work from home, it's best for him to do that for as long as possible. I'm missing the person to person contact, but ironically I've also decided now is the time to reduce my time on Facebook. There is just too much on it for me at the moment and it's all whirling round my head and I just sit and flick and it gets me nowhere. I still have both my Instagram accounts Crafting While the Baby Naps and Ruth's Reusable Products, and I prefer that for interaction.
So that's my news. How are you all bearing up?
Card! So I've had this set for ages. It's an old MFT set called Sunflower Sweetheart which they re-released in 2019. Someone very kindly sent it to me along with the dies. I didn't use them, as they are the old closed dies and I didn't want to mistakenly chop bits off I'd spent ages colouring, so after colouring her with Copic markers, I fussy cut her. Nearly chopped her head off in the process, but managed not to!
She's just simply adhered to a card base along with some frames I cut out of patterned paper and the sentiment has been stamped along the bottom.
Wishing you all the best of things at the moment. Stay safe. Stay home. Stay sane and Keep On Crafting!
...in one card! Well not quite, but as it's St Patrick's Day and I am half Irish and I have this funky leprechaun in my stash, I decided I had to colour him up in as many of my G and BG Copics as I could. Turns out I don't have as many as I thought I did!
Paddy here is from Paper Smooches and was a gift from an Irish friend who I've known for a ridiculously long time (ever since Uni days!) and who, despite living miles apart, we still manage to meet up and talk like we only saw each other yesterday!
So he's in all the greens and blue-greens I own, stopping short at his face and hands and teeth - if anyone knows any good combos for teeth I'll take it, as he looks like he's smoked one too many. I added some green Spica pen to his shoes and beard because I wanted to. You can't really see it without tilting it, it's so subtle.
I found a green card base in my stash and some glitter paper which I cut out with a Memory Box postage stamp die so he wouldn't get lost on the green background.
However you're getting on amid all this chaos and weirdness with Covid-19, have a great St Patrick's Day and know you can and you will be OK :) Happy Crafting Everyone!
... is it me you're looking for? Well I hope so! Here's another of these long lost panels that I rediscovered while going through my box of unused coloured stuff, or BUCS (in tribute to Darnell's NBUS!).
This one has only taken a year to get onto a card, so not quite as bad as last week's.... I wanted it to pop against the background, but also be sympathetic to the colours of the greys. They are ALL the Copic grey tones - N, T, W and C - so you can see the difference in them all. I used some coloured paper I've had stashed away for 5 years and cut the panels to layer it up.
I'm linking this up to my old challenge The Flower Challenge, which Aileen set up and I see going from strength to strength. The theme this month is Anything Goes, which is just perfect for me.
The lovely Viv did a very nice post about some of my wipes, which I custom made in some gorgeous Tilda floral hummingbird fabric. Thank you for your kind words Viv! Hope you're having a good week so far. The sun has been shining and it's been nice to get out and about without getting damp.
Thanks for popping by and Happy Crafting Everyone! Ruth xx
I'm fine, how are you? I actually completely forgot I coloured this in. Two years ago. Yes, two years ago! I met up with some lovely crafty friends one weekend in Birmingham and had a lovely time stamping and colouring. We mostly did talking, but I stamped a few images and coloured them in and never made them into cards. Well now is the time!
With my business all about reducing waste, it was high time I went through my scrap box and pulled out this panel which I'd coloured with Copics all that time ago. I wanted to practice highlights and shading. I'm not too sure how successful I've been, but I enjoyed using some of the grey-blues in my collection. The stamp is from Simon Says Stamp.
I'm really enjoying revisiting my card making and getting a bit of a stash going again. Always useful when you're reminded it's someone's birthday or you just need to send a Hello.
Thank you for visiting as always. Keep crafting! Ruth xx
Why hello! So, now that my birthday is over, I'm going into Christmas organising full tilt. How I'm doing is debatable, but the will is there! I wanted to get at least 30 Christmas cards made and today I finished up another four to finally get there. I then decided to write my list for handmade cards and realised I needed 40..... so another 10 will have to be found from somewhere soon!
Anyway, here are the four I made today from Clearly Besotted Stamps supplies. Some very simple Copic colouring on the owls and moose before I fussy cut them. Then I masked of a central piece in on the card blank and lightly dusted different light Altenew inks onto them through one of the new Clearly Besotted stencils. This one is birch background and the inks are very light through them, and the photo doesn't do it justince. I then just glued on the moose and owls.
I then found an old set called Sweet Little Sentiments, which at one point I was going to sell and I'm glad I didn't. The Merry Christmas fited just nicely and I inked it up with some VersaFine Onyx Black as it give such a clean impression first time round.
That, as they say is that!
I did my first ever Christmas Fair last weekend. Just a little one in the school. Oh my was I nervous, but I've had so much support from all my friends and family, it really kept me going. I had a couple of 'too expensive' mutters, but apart from that it was very positive - and exhausting. If you want to find out what I've been up to with my sewing, you can follow my adventures on Instagram and Facebook, as well as my Etsy shop itself.
So I'll be back before Christmas I hope with some more cards now that I have to make those extra 10! Thanks so much for stopping by, Happy Crafting Everyone :)
I've been MICA (Missing In Crafty Action) for a few weeks as I've been working on finishing off stock for my Etsy shop and adding listings. Nobody should ever think Etsy is just take a photo, stick it in your shop and it will sell. You have to know what you are doing and I am very grateful to have the help of Jewellery and Gems with it. Getting my head around all that is needed to get noticed and to get sales on top of looking after the girls and the household just about finished me off last week! Onwards and upwards! It's nice to be able to switch crafts from time to time, so I had a good play with some Copic refills, acetate, card and some large stamps trying out the Alcohol Ink Lift Technique I've seen in passing - Teresa Morgan's video is very good. I know Ranger and Tim Holtz have come out with an alcohol ink lift stamp pad, but these days all my money goes on fabric, so I decided to try it with my Copic refills and some colourless blender as well as the copic cleaner.
I have a video of how I got on. Of course, during the process, my video camera died, so I had to scrabble around for the charger and the best results I had have been lost, but I hope you still find the other footage useful. Please remember that YouTube is a third party and as such you may want to look at its privacy policy if you have any concerns about cookies being placed on your machine.
What I've learnt is: Colourless Blender is best - the cleaner pushes the ink away too much A detailed stamps works better than a semi solid stamp Acetate works quite well, but it can take a while to dry, and it does leave it a bit sticky Don't put foil flakes on...... see video as to why! Don't put too much colourless blender on your sponge when using with stencils Have fun making a mess - I know Michelle Short uses gloves and now I know why!!
When it works it works really really nicely and I have three finished projects as you can see. I even made a shaker having seen Lisa's recent fantastic efforts. It's been a while!
Have you ever tried this?? It was a really great session! I've seen people using gelli plates with alcohol ink too, so maybe that's also something to try. Happy crafting everyone!
I'm staying on the theme of Christmas cards for the time being, and mass production, but unlike my last video, I've done a bit more colouring and added in some stencilling and die cutting. I've still kept it fairly clean and simple.
This is another of the cute angels from Pretty Pink Posh (you can get them in Dies to Die For in the UK). I've used a cloud stencil on the background, die cut the top panel with an MFT stitched window die and added a simple sentiment. I've popped up the die cut panel over the clouds and added in the Copic coloured and fussy cut angel with some foam pads. You can see more of the process in my video either below or over on my YouTube channel (this is an external site and will have cookies).
I'm also only 1 away from 300 subscribers! I know this is peanuts compared to some of you, but for me this is a huge leap, so thank you to everyone who stops by to watch and support. You are all appreciated more than you know!
I find with mass production as long as you have a clear production line, even more complicated cards can be pretty quickly done. I'm pretty busy with getting my Etsy shop up and running and have an Etsy mentor who is making me do lots of inventory and work on my processes and make up as many bags as possible.I'm hoping that in the next three weeks, I'll have some more in the shop. Watch this space! As always, thank you for stopping by and Happy Crafting :)
Welcome to the Sweet2Repeat Blog Hop for the August release. You should have got here from Martha and there is a full list of on the SugarPea Designs blog.
I didn't get a chance to use the cute Bewitched set during the release, so it didn't take me long to ink them up and have some fun colouring.
Since doing my last Copic colouring class, I've really been trying to work on my no line colouring, so I inked up the witch on her broomstick with some Memento Desert Sand and got colouring away. It's not easy, but I really really love the challenge of trying to work out the shadows and highlights and the end result makes me feel I'm heading in the right direction.
Once I'd finished with my Copics, I added some details in with my Polychromos pencils. They work very well together and the wonderful Marika Rahtu, who sadly no longer does videos, has some great tutorials on her YT channel. I die cut the witches out and to add some interest in the back panel, I cut out some stars using the Sugar Cut - Star Dust die on some blue card stock and adhered a panel of yellow behind.
I then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment and popped up the witch and her hat with foam tape before I attached the panel onto a white card blank.
I love lots of things about card making; colouring, patterned paper and a punny sentiment. This card has it all. This set, Easily A'Moose'd, was on my wish list for a long time, and I got the Happy Camper paper pad to go with it.
Hubby and I are both big Star Wars fans (read the books and watch the cartoons type of serious fan!), so with our wedding anniversary coming up, this was perfect. The paper pad has fabulous patterned paper in it and the night sky was perfect, but I didn't just want the whole background to be sky, so I struck upon the idea of using the camp scene, and cutting out the white checked inner to use the outside as a frame. I used a craft knife and a steel ruler (stolen from my husband's model railway hobby!) and then a very steady hand for the intricate little bits. After attaching the night sky to my card blank, I attached some thin foam strips to the back of the camp scene frame and with my best effort managed to attach it to the card blank straight. I attached some foam pads to the back of the little moose which I'd coloured with Copic markers and fussy cut. I also coloured and fussy cut the marshmallow on the stick and attached it with some glue to the moose's hand - I think of it like a light saber..... As the paper is slightly shiny, I stamped the sentiment with some Stazon ink.
Thank you for taking the time to visit me today, and May the Forest Be With You To!
Welcome to the first day of the September release at SugarPea Designs! Today we are showcasing the To Infinity & Beyond stamp set and the cute sweet incentive, Over the Moon. I decided to make the latter the main focus of my card as that sun hugging the moon is so adorable.
I Copic coloured the main images, and all the planets from the To Infinity set and die cut them out.I wanted a dark background, with a space feel, so I took a scrap piece of blue cardstock I found in my stash and added some splatter with white gouache and several Spectrum Sparkle pens. I heat set it to save a bit of time and adhered it to an A2 (US) sized card. I wanted the planets revolving around the sun, and off the edge of the card in places, so I cut some strips of acetate, attached the planets to one end and then the other end to the back of the sun. I then attached the sun to the middle of the card. The sentiment was stamped on some acetate with black Stazon and then attached with some vellum adhesive, as it is clear. I felt it needed a little sparkle from some tiny little stars.
The release will be available on Friday 24th at 6pm, EST time from the SugarPea Designs website.Don't forget to visit the SugarPea Designs blog every day and comment for a chance to win a daily prize! Come back tomorrow for more release fun! Thank you so much for visiting me today :)
If you've been following my recent exploits on Instagram you'll have seen me advertising that I was going to make a box card. Well. I did! I've never made one before, feeling that they were quite a lot of work and I'd need at least a week to make one.
Well, turns out they aren't too bad after all. I watched Ale Suta's video and had a read of this tutorial from Papermill Direct. Once you've worked out the basic principals of the box card, it's not too difficult to put it all together. I finally got round to colouring in all these images from the Go Wild Again set from Clearly Besotted. I used my Copic markers and then fussy cut them out. A poll on Instagram suggests many of you don't like fussy cutting, but I LOVE it, so I even cut out the little frogs. I made up my box card with some Stampin' Up papers I hadn't got round to using yet, and attached all the images with thin strips of acetate. The box card then folds down to a nice square size and then will pop up again quite happily.
They really look very effective, and although they take a bit of time to put together, the results are worth it. Definitely one to do again. Thanks for popping by!
I bought this adorable piggy set from Stampin' Up at the time of the new catalogue release in June. It's not a brand new one, but I kept thinking about it since I saw it in the last catalogue, and decided it had to be added to my collection. I've used it a couple of times and it's great for colouring and also for just plain stamping. They are just hilarious!
I stamped it onto some Copic friendly cardstock with some light ink - I use Desert Sand - and decided I had to try no line colouring again. I find this incredibly difficult as I have still to grasp the concept of light source and shading, but unless I practice I will never get it! I have done my best with getting the shading and the particular pink correct, and I'm actually relatively pleased with it for once. After colouring, I stamped over the sentiment (it's attached to the image) with Tuxedo Black - this is where a stamping press works really well as you can leave it on and then stamp again and know it will be in the right place. I then cut it down and mounted it off set onto a card blank with some Lawn Fawn Let's Polka paper on it - one of my favourite paper pads ever! Thank you all of you who visit and leave comments, it is appreciated more than you will know. You make me happy :)
I am terrible at sending birthday cards, so I tend to focus on cards I can send out at any time of the year. The Chunky Monkey set is very versatile with different cute images and perfect for birthdays and all year round cards.
Do you know the story of Day Monkey, Night Monkey by Julia Donaldson? My youngest has it and it was her favourite book for ages. She had two little monkeys that she took to bed every night for weeks, so as soon as I saw these monkeys I had to colour them the same. It's such a sweet story for bedtime reading.
I stamped them on Copic friendly cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured them in with my Copics, one light, one dark. I then fussy cut them out, cutting between the two tails so I could cut all the white away.
I stamped the branch onto another piece of Copic cardstock and coloured with my Copic markers. I then cut around the branch, and you could partially die cut the circle with your Zig Zag Stitched Circles as it will just leave the aperture and not the stitching. I took an A2 (US) white card blank and marked lightly on it where the aperture would be and masked a rectangle around it. I then inked the area in distress inks to make a sunset scene. I die cut the branch panel out with the scalloped die from the SugarCut - Birthday Journal Card and stamped the sentiment from the Chunky Monkey set at the bottom. All I then needed to do was assemble it. I used foam tape to place the branch panel on top of the card blank and very gently glued the monkey tails over the branch and applied a little glue behind the dark brown monkey for security.
Thank you so much for joining me today. Happy Crafting :)
Hi Everyone, I'm back to share a couple of cards I made to start off the May challenge over on the Copic UK Facebook Group. This month it is using only 5 colours. Now those of you who use Copics or any other marker, knows that can be a challenge, especially if, like me, you enjoy colouring people and critters that can often take up around 20 colours an image. So I used a technique I learnt on my Copic 4 class called colour washing.
My apologies that my photographs don't really capture the colours terribly well. They are muted, which is what the technique gives, but not that muted! I found a couple of images of these Jane's Doodles cacti that I stamped out ages ago to take with me when I travel and hadn't got round to colouring them yet. The video below explains much better how this technique works, but basically you lay down your shading in grey and then wash another colour on top. In this case I did remember the colours I used thanks to the video! I used my Toner greys in 1, 3 and 5 and a YG63 and an E23.
It is a really quick and simple way to get a muted effect for your colouring and for colouring in small images. I then fussy cut the cacti and popped them up onto foam tape on top of a piece of patterned paper from my recent Stampin' Up stash haul. A white card blank and a simple sentiment in the bottom corner kept it very simple.
I hope you'll join in the challenge this month - there are Copic Ciaos to be won! - and try something different too. Happy Crafting!!
Thank you all so much for your kind comments about my colouring for Copic 4 that I posted on Sunday. I really do think I have grown in confidence since doing it, and it's made me want to keep practising when I can. I still have so much to learn - light source and shading is my constant bugbear - but when people are encouraging it makes you want to go on!
This card was made on my recent crafty weekend with Lisa and Steph. Isn't this fairy utterly adorable? It's from a recent Clearly Besotted release and you know I can't resist those stamps.....
I started out by making my background panel with my Gansai Tambi Pearl Colours - yes, I will be getting the Gem Colours at some point, I can't resist these paints! I used them all to get rainbow colours.
I then took three die cuts of the MFT Snowdrifts Cover Up and glued them together and adhered them to the pearl background.
I then took a long time to work out what I wanted to have on top and I decided with all the pretty colours, the fairy was perfect. I coloured her with the Copics I'd taken with me and fussy cut her out. It was a pretty quick assembly when I got home onto a white card blank with the fairy on top. As usual, I couldn't decide on a sentiment, so have left it blank. Sometimes a pretty fairy card doesn't need a sentiment, right?
I'm going to link this up to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge which is showcasing MFT and also Anything Goes. Thanks so much for stopping by, it is truly appreciated, and as always, Happy Crafting!
Some of you may have noticed that I've not been posting for my Design Teams on The Flower Challenge and The Card Concept. I made a hard decision to come off both teams last month as I was struggling to manage with it and starting work. Much as I enjoyed both teams, I find it extremely hard to think of cards to make when asked to do so. My hat is off to all my crafty friends who are on Design Teams! Sometimes, however, I can find the brain power to enter a card that fits a challenge, and in this case it was the CAS Colours & Sketches #265.
I loved the sketch as it was nice and clear and simple. I was sent this image by a kind crafty friend some time ago and somehow it just fit the bill perfectly. I love owls and this had to be coloured in the brightest colours I could find - yellows, orange and pink. As I don't have a flag die, I masked one over this Uniko stencil that I got in a recent haul and blended over some yellow and orange distress inks. I fussy cut the owl and the cute little ladybird and made the sentiment flag myself with an Avery Elle small alphabet set.
It really did come together nice and quickly and simply and it will be going out in the post soon - I have so much happy mail to send it's not true! Thank you for taking the time to visit me today. It really is very much appreciated. Happy Crafting!
I do like digi stamps for their price and the fact they are very easy to store. The only thing I find is that as I don't see them - ie they are in a folder on my computer - I don't always automatically think of them. However, I have been following Patricia's drawing and colouring on IG and when I saw the mermaid digi stamps, I knew I had to have one.
I printed her out on Make It Colour Blending paper and coloured her in with my Copic markers. I then fussy cut her out - yes the hair was a bit of a challenge! I used my distress inks and my wave stencil from Create A Smile to create the background. I deliberately moved the stencil when using different inks to add more waves. I then die cut the panel out with my WPlus9 Sending Sunshine die and adhered it to a white card blank. The sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted mermaid set you saw in my Wednesday post.
I will be back tomorrow with my final card and a video as well. If you do feel inspired, please tag me on IG and use the hashtag #ruthsmermaidweek. Happy Mermaid Crafting!
I've had these stamps for a while and one evening a few weeks ago, along with a whole load of things, I decided to colour them in. I struggled to get the right browns, but I did a lot of blending and came up with something that seemed to work!
