Hello! A post mid-week from me to get in to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - I think I have about 15 hours left! I saw it was Furry Friends and Newton's Nook and as part of my happy mail last week from Make the Day Special was my first set from them - In Slow Motion - I couldn't resist.
I love this set - I've already used it once to decorate an envelope! - so I thought I'd use the sloth - how can a sloth not be a furry friend?
[Supplies: Newton's Nook In Slow Motion; Lawn Fawn Large Stitched Square Lawn Cuts; Memento Tuxedo Black; Versa Magic Hint of Pesto; Ranger Dye Lily Pad; Memento Cottage Ivy; Derwent Artist's Pencils; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles; Copic Ciaos]
I had to look up a picture of a sloth on the internet to work out its fur. I stamped the sloth a couple of times to try out what media to colour with. The final result was a strange mixture of Copics, water colour pencil and coloured pencils. The body was coloured in Copics (E57 with C2 on top), with white water colour pencil on the top; the face, claws and branch were then coloured using coloured pencils.
Here's a little close up of the fur - I think it works quite well!
I then fussy cut him out. I also made a mask of the sloth and then the leaves on a post-it note and cut them out.
I positioned the sloth post-it on the card and got to stamping the leaves with some of my greens - Versa Magic Hint of Pesto; Memento Cottage Ivy; Ranger Dye Lily Pad - and masking off the ones I wanted to stand out.
After removing the masks, I positioned where I wanted to emboss my stitched square around the sloth, and then stamped the sentiment on the inside. I then ran it through my Grand Calibur - I need to emboss my dies a lot more. I really like the results.
Normally I'd pop the cut out piece up on foam, but I decided I'd like a more one layer card - it's much cheaper on postage! - so just used some double sided tape.
I'm quite impressed I managed this today, but my 4 year old helped me by sharpening my pencils and doing a bit of colouring beside me while her sister had a long nap.
Thanks so much for reading! Hope your week is going really well.
Hello, crafty friends. I don't know about you, but I can't believe it's July already. June was quite a crafty month with the Daily Marker 30 Day 2. I'm sad it's over, because I had so much fun learning new things, but all good things must come to an end, and it's time I started turning all that colouring into cards!
Over on Instagram (it's lovely, really lovely, so much inspiration and friendly crafters!) I shared some colouring linked to a baby a friend was expecting. I hedged my bets and did two lots, one in pink and one in blue. I'm not usually quite so generic, but sometimes inspiration is lacking! Anyway, it turned out to be a boy, by the name of George, so blue it is!
I stuck with simple and decided to make a shaker too - any chance to get those Lucy Abram's shaker mixes out!
Supplies: White Card Blank (14.75x14.75cm); ME Up And Away Stamps and Dies; Papermania 6x6 Papers Capsule Collection; Memento Tuxedo Black; VersaMagic Dew Drop Night Sky; Derwent Artists Pencils; Caran D'Ache Metallic Pencils; LF Large Stitched Square Lawn Cuts; Acetate; Double-sided Tape; Red tape; Adhesive backed Fun Foam; CB Sweet Little Sentiments; Lucy's Little Things Shaker Sequin selection Glacier; Joe and Flo Baker's Twine; Sellotape Double Sided Sticky Foam Pads; Ranger Multi Medium Matte; Bazzill Cardshoppe - blue; VersaMagic Dew Drop Aspen Mist
I started by die cutting a square of blue Bazzill Cardshoppe using two of the LF large stitched square lawn cuts to make a frame. I then attached a piece of acetate to the back of the square aperture to start the shaker section. I then hand cut a piece of adhesive backed fun foam to match the size of the frame, and stuck it down on the back of my blue card. Face down on my craft mat I then filled the shaker section with lots of Lucy's lovely sequins and things.
I then attached some very sticky red tape to the back of the fun foam, positioned it face down on my craft mat and attached the card base on the top. I'm getting better at this the more I do and this one is not too squint!
I then attached some baker's twine to the back of the balloons and then to the monkey's hand. Then, with double sided sticky foam pads, attached them to the card front as shown.
The sentiment is stamped in Aspen Mist and attached with sticky foam pads. The additional sequins started by covering a slight smudge, but I added a few more so it wasn't quite so obvious! They are stuck on with the Multe Medium Matte.
Hope you survived the mid week heat wave - that'll be summer over now in the UK, we've already had torrential rain today!
Do enjoy your weekend, whatever the weather. Thanks, as always, for reading :)
Hello! So who is still doing The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge? I'm still going, with the odd hiatus - sometimes you have to do housework! This card was inspired by Kathy Racoosin's Day 8 post, where she created an amazing card background just using a roll of tape and markers. It was pretty inspiring, so I came up with my own interpretation. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen the first few photos, but not the finished product!
Basically I started with a piece of watercolour paper and took a couple of my Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Circles and drew around them in a random pattern with some of my purple Spectrum Aquas, overlapping to create the different shapes. I then got to colouring in between the lines using all my different purple and blue markers and pencils - from my Spectrum Aquas, to my lonely blue Inktense and my Caran D'Ache water colours and my Artists pencils too. This was the result:
It looked a bit odd with the water colour pencil as is, so I blended those bits with water to soften it up. In hindsight, I shouldn't have used a water colour marker to draw the circles - they naturally bled a bit, and it looks a bit messy up close. You don't get anywhere by not experimenting though!
Pretty funky, but what to do with it? I've seen some great inlaid die cutting on cards, so after watching a Jennifer McGuire video and one from Lawn Fawn, I got busy with my CB Thanks die cutting it out from the corner of the funky panel and then several from white card stock:
I then glued the white Thanks together using my new bottle of Ranger Multi Medium Matte with its precision tip - that makes it much easier! - and then added the coloured panel on top. To stick it back into the panel, I put some double sided sticky tape on the back of the panel so the blank space for the thanks was now sticky. I stuck it on carefully, and put back in with my tweezers all the little extra die cut pieces from the 't' and 'h' and 'a' etc. Blimey, that is fiddly work!
I then simply attached it to my card blank. It's quite subtle because it blends in with the background, but some Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents help it pop out a bit more.
[Supplies: Water colour card; Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Circle Dies (out of stock where I purchased them); Spectrum Aqua - Floral; Derwent Artists' Pencils; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles; Derwent Inktense Pencils; Clearly Besotted Thanks die; Wink of Stella; Glossy Accents; Ranger Multi Medium Matte; Precision tip; Double sided tape]
Thank you so much for reading and have a lovely weekend :)
It's been quite a week and amongst other things, the 30 Day Colouring Challenge hosted by the lovely Kathy Racoosin started. I am LOVING it. I've been posting on Instagram every day so far and there are so many people in social media land joining in, it's really inspirational. If you don't know what I'm on about, check out Kathy's blog for more information and join in if you can!
Enough rambling, did I actually make any cards? Well yes I did! I focused on Father's Day cards as that is coming up in a couple of weeks and I had three to make - my Dad, my Father in Law and my Husband!
I've been using some Lawn Fawn stamps I got a couple of months ago, which is nice because they haven't been out of their packet much! Here they are:
My Dad:
My Dad loves reading, so the CB Bookworm set linked with the LF Best Pun Ever fitted nicely. The cup was stamped in Lemon Twist Ranger Dye ink, and like the rest, coloured in using my Derwent Artist's pencils. I cut it from the matching die and covered it in Wink of Stella then glossy accents to make it stand out. I cut a slit in the top and popped in the die cut book worm. I think he's cute. The backing paper is LF Let's Polka.
My Father in Law:
Again I used the LF Best Pun Ever set, stamping the cheese onto a panel of water colour card stock in Lemon Twist and appropriately, Cheese Puff Ranger Dye ink, with the grater in Memento London Fog. I coloured them in with my Prismallo Aquaralles and gave them a light wash with water to bring the colour out. The sentiment is simply stamped in Ranger Jet Black Archival ink. The background is LF Let's Polka Mon Amie. I think he'll like the terrible pun!
My husband:
I love the little ice lollies from the Best Pun Ever set. The little faces that go with them are so so cute! As we have two little girls, it seemed appropriate to stamp the larger lolly in the middle of two little ones My husband likes green and my eldest loves pink, so that was the colour scheme I went with. They're simply stamped onto water colour cardstock with Ranger Jet Black Archival ink, coloured in with Spectrum Aquas (from the floral set), and given a light wash with water. I thought it would be fun to put the sentiment on the inside too - making the 'Coolest' blue (Blue Ribbon Ranger Dye)
[Supplies used on cards: Lawn Fawn Best Pun Ever; Lawn Fawn Let's Polka (currently out of stock where I purchased it) and Let's Polka Mon Amie; Clearly Besotted Book Worm; Ranger Dye Inks; Ranger Archival Ink; Derwent Artist's Pencils; Spectrum Aqua Pens; Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles]
It's so far been a productive week and we're only on Day 5 of the challenge - I don't think I've made so many cards in a week!
Thanks, as always, for reading and I hope you get the chance to join in with me and everyone else on the challenge. Oh and it's release day for Clearly Besotted Stamps - it's a good one ;)
Hello everyone, hope you're looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend - those in the UK, at least!
Tonight I'm bringing you my first ever shaker card. I have tried these before, without much success. Now I'm not saying it's perfect, but it does work and half the sequins aren't on the floor. I think I need a bit more practice, so this is hopefully the first of a few. No doubt a splurge on some nice sequins will be required - #impoverishedhappycrafter :)
I've made it using some of the new things I received the other day in my haul. It's a basic 6x6 card blank with a piece of Lawn Fawn Let's Polka as backing. The shaker part is a nice grey from my Papermania capsule collection, die cut with the new Lawn Fawn stitched squares - they cut beautifully - filled with some sequins from Hobbycraft. I need some Pretty Pink Posh!
I wanted to see the backing paper through the shaker box, so it is backed with acetate to contain the sequins before attaching to the card - did I mention before that usually they end up on the floor? Some time looking at how to make shaker card videos might be well spent over the next couple of days.
The set is Mama Elephant Up and Away, stamped in various Memento dye inks, coloured with Derwent pencils. The balloons are coloured using my metallic Caran D'Ache, with a bit of Wink of Stella and glossy accents. The fox is hanging on with some red baker's twine.
I'm just so happy it worked, I had a lot of fun making it.
Thanks for reading, enjoy your weekend!
I was really quite saddened to hear of the sudden death of Jonathan Crombie, who played Gilbert Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables mini series I loved. It was a big part of my early teens and me and my sisters watched it whenever we could. That and a difficult day on Friday, has left me in a little bit of a somber mood, so I made a very simple sympathy card.
I'd also like to enter it into challenge #119 over at CAS(E) This Sketch. The cards up there are so good, but hey ho, I like to give things a go!
I started with a white card blank and simply stamped the rose in Memento Lady Bug, the little leaves under the rose in Versa Magic Hint of Pesto and the stem in Memento Cottage Ivy. The stamp is the free set from Simply Cards and Papercraft issue 133. Honestly, I've used this so often, I wonder why I buy stamps at all? I then coloured them in with my Derwent Artists pencils. I never realised how much I enjoy colouring. It is so therapeutic.
The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted Sweet little sentiments set stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black onto some red paper and cut out with my Clearly Besotted Long Flag die.
Thanks for reading. I hope your day has been good. The sunshine came along here this afternoon so we had a play in the garden.
