Sunday 30 October 2011

Dream Valley #19 - Anything Goes

This fortnight, the challenge at Dream Valley is an old favourite.....Anything GoesMelly, our wonderful leader, will be offering a very lucky person a £10 voucher to use in either Crafty Emma's delish shop OR Saturated Canary's Digi's image Esty store - you choose!! How fab!!

My card is a new baby card using a photo, 2 designer papers (Crafters Companion pink gingham, and K&Co pink paper), ribbon & lace, an epoxy sticker, pearls and embossed vellum.


No, my copics haven't broken! hahaa. I just felt like a change and used a printed photo instead.

Check out the challenge blog for my clever teamies' fab projects. Happy crafting!

Friday 28 October 2011

Colour some texture

Hello bloggers, I hope everyone is well. I've had a bit of a change round on my blog and added a second sidebar so I could do some tidying up. The header etc is different too but it won't stay like this for long....I was messing about with backgrounds yesterday when something happened to my blog so that I could no longer open it (shock horror!) and it kept making my laptop freeze to even try and open my blog. So I didn't get a chance to change the background to something more crafty. I'm too scared to touch it now in case it won't open again!

Anyway, we have a new challenge today at Make It Colourful, which is to COLOUR SOME TEXTURE. This could be anything you like: some grass, a woolly jumper, straw, fur......anything! If it's got some texture in there then you can enter. You can use any make of image in your colouring, doesn't have to be a Make It Crafty one, although there is an extra prize draw for MiC images.


I had been dying to colour this image by Crissy Armstrong, Turk In Boots. The tailfeathers I coloured in a deeply-grooved corrugated effect, and the pumpkin was coloured in long strokes of my copics to look like the many little ridges on the surface. And my final bit of texture is in the body of the turkey, which I coloured smoothly with copics then added little feathery pencil marks to look, well, feathery.


I kept the colours very autumnal, browns, golds and oranges with a little green, and picked up some violet from the backing paper to make a faint violet shadow around my turkey.  The chippie leaves are coloured with the same greens from the hat band. Hope you like it.

Image: Turk in Boots by Crissy Armstrong
Colouring: copics and pencils
Chippie leaves: Butterfly Leaves by Make It Crafty
DPs: K&Co, Brenda Walton Brookfield
Spellbinders: Lacey circles and standard circles
Computer printed sentiment
Ribbons from my craft stash


Don't forget to check out the Make It Crafty gallery to see more inspiration for colouring a little texture.

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes
Crafty Boots - Autumn or Halloween
Crafty Creations - Leaves and fall palette
Digi Doodles - Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey - Use a digi
Partytime Tuesdays - Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash - Halloween OR Autumn/Fall colours


Wednesday 19 October 2011

Colouring snow for Make It Colourful: Ragged Angel and winter background

Hi all, I did some colouring last week and have only just today made something with it.  This is my DT project for Make It Colourful, where the challenge this fortnight is to COLOUR SNOW. This means not just adding glitter to look like the white stuff, but actually using your colouring to depict snow.

We are so lucky in that there are some new background snowy winter scene images now at Make It Crafty, and I've used 3 of them in my scene together with this fabulous image from Mo Manning. Now, I have to admit that Ragged Angel melts my heart, she's beautifully drawn and so adorable, and a poor little child out in the freezing snow - well, it can kinda move you to tears. So I had to colour the Angel in warm colours so that she could be warm inside despite the cold environment.

Colouring is in Copics as usual, and the way I've coloured the snow is to leave the majority of the paper white and uncoloured, and added some shadows and little areas of very pale blue (B0000) and a pale cool grey (C1 and some C3). It's a daytime scene, hence the lightsource from the right, but I decided the street lamp would be lit even though there's daylight, so it just casts a little warm light onto the snow on the lantern itself. The sky is coloured in a pale violet as if there is more snow in the sky - oh that poor little urchin!



Images merged with permission from Mo Manning

The finished colouring has been made up into a shadow box card so the image is sunk into the cardstock. The paper in the border is from Websters Pages, inked around the edges and matted onto green card.  The sentiment is from Stempelglade, and some lace, a metal filligree corner, a poinsettia, punched snowflake and a couple of roses finish it all off.



I hope it is OK to say that I do like this scene that I merged and I'm really pleased with how the colouring went. Always room for improvement but I'm happy.


I made this card for Mo's Bronte & Bella's challenge which this week is Inspired by a Song. When I was planning this, I had the song "It may be winter outside (but in my heart it's spring)" going round my head because I didn't like the thought of our little Angel suffering the cold and kind of imagined that she'd have an inner warmth to keep her OK. Kind of like the old Ready Brek advert, for those of us old enough to remember, lol.



Images: Festive Lantern (from Festive Elements), Large Pine Tree,
Ragged Angel from Mo Manning
Colouring: Copic markers
DP: Websters Pages
Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts
Martha Stewart snowflake punch
Prima poinsettia, lace, roses from my stash
Sentiment: Vintage Christmas from Stempelglade

I'd like to enter this in these challenges:
ABC Christmas Challenge - U for Unused Stash (all my images are brand new, and this is the first time I've used this sentiment stamp)
Bronte and Bella's Challenge - Inspired by a song ("It may be winter outside")
Aud Sentiment Challenge - Winter theme
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Lace it up
Fabulous Friday - Fancy trim
Flutterby Wednesday - Open challenge
Whoopsie Daisy - Free & easy


I hope you like my project today. It's gone very cold here in Brum and I'm sitting with a hot water bottle as I type this, lol. Keep warm everyone!



Friday 14 October 2011

Blog hop winners

Hi everyone - today is the day when we announce the winners of the Make It Crafty blog hop. A full list of winners can be found at Make It Colourful.

A big thank you to everyone that left a comment for my hop cards, I really wish I could send a gift to each and every one of you, but as Highlander says "There can be only one" so I am pleased to announce that the winner of my candy is.......(drum roll)



JANETTE of Little-Boscraftyplace!!!!!


Congratulations Janette and let me have your address so I can get something nice posted to you.

Congrats to all the other winners too and I hope everyone enjoyed the hop.

Friday 7 October 2011

Thanks & Thanksgiving at Sundays With Crissy

Hi everyone I'm back with my DT project for Sundays With Crissy, where the theme this month is Thanks and Thanksgiving. I decided to make a clean and simple Thank You card using one of Crissy's latest images, the cute Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. She has released this image as a regular line art digi stamp but also as a pencil sketch stamp, which has some shading already added. If you like colouring the Simply Adorable images from Sugar Nellie, then this type of image will appeal to you. Check out the pencil sketch stamp HERE, it looks so lovely.

I used copics to colour the image, and added some pencil on top to add a bit of texture. The papers are offcuts left over from another card and the sentiment is stamped and punched out using 2 nesties, and I then made it into a kind of rosette by adding red ribbon.


 Image: Sugar Pie Honey Bunch by Crissy Armstrong
Colouring: Copics and pencils
DPs: Papermania
Spellbinders Standard circles large and Lacey circles dies
Ribbons from stash

I printed the image out again in pale ink and had another go at colouring....this has quite a different look:


DPs: Stampin Up
Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

I'd like to enter these cards in these challenges:
Crafts & Me - Use a digi
Crafty Cardmakers - Anything goes (2nd entry)
My Mum's Craft Shop - All creatures great and small
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Sweets & Treats
One Stop Craft Challenge - Just for Men
Southern Girls - Boys or Men
The Crafty Pad - One for the boys

Hope you like these, for more Thank You and Thanksgiving cards, visit the challenge blog throughout the month and see what new projects the DT have uploaded.

Enjoy your weekend!

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Tilda in sheer clothing!

Hi everyone. It's all change at Make It Colourful, with the weekly challenge now a bi-weekly one, and a new harder monthly challenge to push our colouring skills further!

First, the new monthly challenge. This one is just for fun and to improve skills, and will have a more difficult theme. The idea is to show the process rather than just the results, sharing our mistakes and what we've learned, and you can discuss the challenge and share tips and experience on the NEW message board over at the Make It Crafty gallery.  The first monthly challenge is to colour A Spooky Night Sky, and you can read about it HERE.

Now to the regular challenge......it is now a bi-weekly challenge to give you more time to colour your project and has moved from Saturdays to Fridays. The DT will be uploading their projects throughout the fortnight, so keep checking the gallery for more inspiration. The current theme is Colouring Sheer Clothing, and you can find it HERE.

Both challenges will be posted on the Make It Colourful blog, and you'll find all cards for the challenges in the gallery.

A couple of reminders: there is another week to run for the Christmas/Zoe's birthday blog hop, with candy available on all the DT blogs, a freebie image up for grabs if you make a birthday card, and some tempting giveaways on Zoe's blog, as well as a chance to see the new Christmas images. Click HERE to read about and start the hop.  The blog hop has been so much fun, and I want to say a very big thank you for all the fantastic comments left for my cards....that has meant so much!

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So, after all that I do actually have a card to show, it's one I made for the Sheer Clothing challenge. I've tried to colour a couple of sheer frills on Tilda's dress - you can still see the red dress through the sheer panels. I did this by colouring the bottom of the dress in copics, then used the same colours roughly on the upper parts of the dress leaving some white areas, then used white polychromo pencil on top of the whole sheer areas. the sleeves are also sheer - you can see her arms through the fabric. Well, this was my first attempt and definitely an experiment! I hope it passes muster. There are more sheer colourings from the DT on the gallery.


I used a couple of laser-cut chipboards which I coloured using copic markers, and the butterfly chipboard was also clear embossed before adding a few pearls. There are 2 layers of lace on the card to echo the 2 layers of sheer frills in the dress, and a red flower finishes the card off.

Image: Tilda with Sunflower, by Magnolia
Colouring: Copics and white polychromo pencil
Designer Papers: Oriental Spice, by Papermania
Chippies: Butterfly Leaves and Round Leaves, by Make It Crafty
Flowers, lace and pearls from my craft stash

I also made this as a birthday card for the lovely Zoe, without whom there would be no Make It Colourful or Make It Crafty, and who adds so much to the crafting world.

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I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Crafty Emma - Totally gorjuss/pretty girls (2nd entry)
Crafty Cardmakers - Anything goes
Simply Create - Older than 6 months (papers, image, lace and pearls are all well over that age! lol)
Stamping For The Weekend - What a cutie
Whoopsie Daisy - Lace & pearls

 
Hope you like the card. Have a good week everyone :)


Sunday 2 October 2011

Dream Valley #17 - Monochromatic

Blogger seems to be having issues again! I decided to catch up with commenting today, but it seems only some comments are actually getting through. I'll keep trying, but sorry if you're one of the blogs I can't comment on. Hopefully, Mr Blogger will resolve this soon.

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Hello everyone, it's time for another challenge at Dream Valley Challenges, and the theme this month is Monochrome. So everything on the card needs to be of one colour, although if you're colouring a character you can still use skin tones of course.

 
Our sponsor this fortnight is One Stop Card Crafts, and a lucky winner will receive a £10 gift certificate for their store!

This is the card I made as my DT project....as you see I chose blue-green as my colour.  I used my new Stempelglede stamp, which I finally treated myself to (available from Quixotic Paperie), and stamped it using Versafine black ink onto gloss paper. Then I fussy cut around the edge of the image to give it a deckle-edge (you can see that better in one of the close ups below), then inked around the edge using some Clearsnap fluid chalk ink in Prussian Blue. Papers were also inked with Prussian Blue and I added some hand-stitching.

I made the embellishments using some laser-cut chipboards from Make It Crafty - a flourish and 2 snowflakes layered up together (an idea I saw on Elaine's beautiful blog). The chipboards were coated in some Adirondack acrylic paint in Cloud Blue and I sprinkled some glamour dust into the paint as it was drying to give them lots of sparkle. A gem was placed in the centre of the snowflakes, and a Prima flower and a pearl spray were placed next to the flourish. Some blue-green organza ribbon and ric-rac finish it all off.



Chipboard flourish coated in acrylic paint and glamour dust


2 snowflakes coated in paint and glamour dust and layered up with a gemstone


Image: Vintage Christmas by Stempelglede
DPs: K&Co and Prima Annalee
Chipboard flourish and snowflakes: by Make It Crafty, available from Quixotic Paperie
Flower: Prima, Sugar Plum roses in Caribbean
Pearl spray: Wild Orchid Crafts
Other: Adirondack acrylic paint dabber, cloud blue; glamour dust;
Clearsnap Cats Eye fluid chalk in Prussian Blue; computer-printed sentiment
Doily, gem & ribbons from my craft stash

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Crafts & Me - Flowers
Crafty Emma's Store - Totally gorjusss/pretty girls
Crafty Purple Frog - Lots of layers
Delightful Challenges - Pearls & swirls
Glitter Geeks - Shabby chic
Kaboodle Doodles - Use a doily
Magical Mondays - Christmas in September (2nd entry)
Paper and Such Design - Recipe challenge (2nd entry) (I chose Ribbon / designer paper / 1 flower)
Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes
Top Tip Tuesday - 2 or more ribbons (ric rac ribbon placed on top of spotty organza ribbon)

And my tip for Top Tip Tuesday: when handstitching your card, paper prick the paper along the edge of a ruler first - not only does it make the stitches neat and evenly spaced but it is so much easier to sew through the paper.


For more monochromatic projects and ideas, check out the challenge blog and see what my teamies have come up with - I can tell you they've made some beauties!

Happy crafting!