To You From Me

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and having a good week. My week is going well so far, I've been colouring and crafting and managed to get a DT post done and published only a couple of hours late! ha haa.

So this is a Colouring Inspiration post for Make It Crafty, using the gorgeous Melody. She is available as a digi image and comes with the cushion as a separate image, so you can either use her alone, merge her with the cushion, or merge her with another background instead.  　 I decided to take up Zoe's challenge of non-related colouring mixing; that is, blending colours from different families. So often when we colour, we'll use shades from the same colour family to add our shading and highlights, but it's fun and interesting to mix it up a bit and shade with something from a different colour group.

    


In this image, I've used copic markers to colour the dress in non-related colours. The background of the fabric is coloured with a turquoise marker (from the Blue-Green family) and shaded with a marker from the Blue family. And I used a marker from the Yellow family for the flowers and an orange (Yellow-Red family) to add shading. The cushion also has some non-related colour mixing, this time some pale orange (Yellow-Red family) and some browns (from the Earth colours family). I think the end result looks a little more vibrant than my usual way of choosing colours to blend, so I'll be using this technique again.

These are the shades I used on this card:

   

Dress: BG13 + B05 + B34; Y17 + YR04 + YR07

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, E13; R20, R22

Hair & Boots: N2, N4, N6, N8, N10

Cushion: YR000, YR20, E31, E35

   
My good news is that I'm able to sit up at the table to colour again.....no more half-lying on the sofa working at odd angles and losing my markers down the sides of the cushions. And I celebrated my return to uprightness by promptly dropping a bright orange marker on my half-finished colouring (doh!!!!). I cleaned it up best I could, but I wasn't going to bin it just because of that, so if you do happen to see my little orange boo-boo on the card, pretend you didn't notice it (wink).



Card Recipe

Scalloped 15x15cm card blank

Image: Melody Digi stamp, from Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers

DP: Pocket Full of Posies by DCVW

Stitched paper is some very old stash from Lakeland

All mats are black cardstock

Ribbon: Crafts U Love

Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities Lacey Circles and Standard Circles Large; Marianne Creatables 'Forest Branch'

Sentiment is gift from a friend

Heart from stash





I'd like to enter this in these challenges:
ATCs With Attitude - Anything Goes
Card Crafters Circle - Patterned Paper
Kaboodle Doodles - Anything Goes
Moving Along With The Times - Stitching
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Pink Elephant - Favourite Colouring Medium
Stampin For The Weekend - Anything Goes
Stamp N Doodle - Use A Digi


Thanks so much for dropping by today and looking at my card - I hope you like it. Enjoy your week!

Sweet You

Hello everybody, hope everything is good with your world. Well, I'm ever so slightly sad because it's my last week as Guest Designer with Sweet Stampin' (sniff) but only slightly sad because I've really enjoyed being a Sweetie for the month of October and I was glad of the incentive to get crafting again.  And at least now I can enter their challenges again, he hee. Have you seen their prizes? Definitely worth winning.

The theme for this week's challenge is What's Cooking/Something to Eat. So I've made a card using this sweet little girl holding a bowl of fruit. How do you like them apples?

I already had this cutie coloured up, she's done entirely in pencils, not a copic marker in sight this time. A friend sent me this image and I have no idea what she's called or where she's from, so if anyone has an idea, please let me know so that I can credit and link to the artist. *(Edit: the lovely Elaine has again come to my rescue and told me that this is an image from The Greeting Farm, and she is called Twinkle Tots Lottie....thanks Elaine!)

 

I did my usual thing with the papers, and inked and handstitched them. Then, flushed with excitement at finally working out how to make these intricate Floral Oval dies cut properly in my cuttlebug, I went ahead and used them twice in one card! The smaller one is popped up onto some 3d foam pads for a little dimension, and the stamped image is popped up on another layer of pads. A strip of flower trim bisects the layout (there's a really nice sheen on these flowers which the camera hasn't caught), and a gauzy bow in apple green sits by a sentiment that I printed onto SafMat and affixed in the corner of one of the papers.

Close up of the sentiment and bow

Card Recipe

Image: Twinkle Tots Lottie, from The Greeting Farm

Colouring: pencils

Designer Papers: Memory Box 'Brioche' and Melissa Francis '5th Avenue'

Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities Floral Ovals
Ribbons from stash

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:

Brown Sugar Challenges - Anything Goes
Delightful Sketches - Stitching
Emerald Faeries - Anything Goes
Fashionista Challenge - Anything Goes
Papercrafting Journey - Ribbon or Twine
Poodles Parlour - Anything Goes
Stampin For The Weekend - Anything Goes
Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules
The Squirrel & The Fox - Use a Ribbon
Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes


Thanks so much for stopping by to visit today, and I do hope you like my card. Happy crafting!

Halloween at Sweet Stampin

Hi everyone, I'm here with my third Guest Designer project this month for Sweet Stampin, and the theme this week is Halloween - wooo hoooooooo!!

This is actually a page layout that I did last year using images from Make It Crafty, I was trying my hand at colouring a dramatic sky. All the colouring - the house, sky, headless horseman and pumpkin in the corner - is done with Copic markers, and the bats were hand-cut from black paper.

I'll be back next week with a new project, until then have a great weekend, and Happy Crafting!

Autumn Tilda

Hello everyone, aren't you just loving the sunny autumn days we are having right now? This weather was kind of the inspiration for my card today, which is my second Guest Designer card for October for Sweet Stampin. The theme is Autumn Leaves/Trees, and I decided to go with an early-autumn feel where the leaves are just starting to turn golden.

My diecut leaves are green, golden and brown, much like they are in the gardens right now. I had to google sunflowers to check that they are actually in season at this time of year (they are!) because I really wanted to use this Tilda image....it's my favourite one to paper-piece (which very craftily gets me out of some colouring). I actually paper-pieced her clothes and shoes in 4 parts, and lifted the ends of the layers in her dress for some extra dimension.

Layers of paper-piecing

The scalloped frame is a diecut mat and I cut an aperture in the centre through which you can see the image.  However, now that the card is all assembled it looks like I simply stuck the image on top of a mat...doh! I should have done that, it would have been a lot easier and quicker LOL.

The backing paper was aged with ink, distressed and handstitched. A die cut with a sentiment, some lace, rose ribbon, pearls, rose and a little glitter finish it off.

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Crafts & Me - Anything Goes
Crafty Mess - Anything Goes
Crafty Sentiments - Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday - Paper Piecing
Deep Ocean Challenge - Anything Goes
Divas By Design - Anything Goes
Gingerloft Challenge - Stitching
Magnolia Stamp Lovers - 2 different shapes of diecuts (my Doohickey Rose Leaves, and the Spellbinders Nestie used for the sentiment)
Oldie But A Goodie - Inspired by a song (mine is All I Have To Do Is Dream by The Everly Brothers) (items more than 6 months old are: image, sentiment stamp, lace, all inks, rose ribbon, rose on leaves, leaf die cuts, scalloped mat, glitter, papers & mats.....almost everything! LOL)

I hope you like my card today - thanks so much for stopping by. Have a good weekend, and happy crafting!

Guest Designer at Sweet Stampin'

Hello everyone - it's a busy few weeks for me as I'm Guest Designer at Sweet Stampin' for October....yay! I found their blog a while a go and it quickly became one of my favourites, so when they asked if I'd like to play along for a month, well you can imagine I was pleased!

The theme this week is Through The Window, and I thought that this would suit a scene I merged up some time ago but never got round to colouring. It's an indoor scene, obviously, but there's another scene which can be seen through the window. The inspiration for this card came from the wonderful Joanne, who used this cute Robyn's Fetish image months ago and I fell in love with it. Of course, I had to do it my way so I added a few background images from Make It Crafty to create this cute little scene for a boy's Christmas card:

The background stamps are the window, table and flowers (called By The Window); the snow-covered tree that you can see through the window (called Large Pine Tree, from the Winter Objects collection of images), and the picture frame on the wall (from a digi called Fireplace). Do you see the picture inside the frame? It's a watercolour scene I did some years ago, and I quite like the thought that it possibly includes the same tree that you can see through the little mouse's window, just painted from a different direction. This is a scan of the watercolour:

I added some dots of silver ink to the sky to make stars:

 

 

The papers have been distressed around the edges with distress inks, and one of the papers has been handstitched. The sentiment is printed on the computer and also distressed and aged with a little ink. The ribbon, poinsettias, leaf and pearl are from my stash. 

This is also a Colouring Inspiration project for Make It Crafty, and you can read more about the colouring HERE (from 7th Oct).  It was quite a challenge to colour the reflection of the lamp on the wall - I had to study my own bedside lamp and take photos to try and work out the colouring!

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On a personal note, I wanted to say a big thank you for the comments, emails and even cards that lovely bloggers have sent, they meant a lot. I am still feeling weak and don't have any answers from the docs yet, but am sort of getting into a new routine with it all and as you see have even taking up a bit of crafting again. As I always say: you can't keep a crafter down! lol.

***

 

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:

Anything Goes Challenge - Animals

Bunny Zoe's Challenge - Distressing

Cards For Men - Animal Magic

Crafts & Me - My Sentiments Exactly
Crafty Mess - Anything Goes

Deep Ocean Challenge - Use More Than 2 Colours

Gingerloft Challenge - Stitching

Inky Impressions - Let's Hear It For The Boys

Paper Shelter - Distressing

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Pixie Dust Studio - Anything Goes

Tuesday Throwdown - Cute & Cuddly

 

 

Thanks for visiting, enjoy the rest of your day, and of course Happy Crafting!



An update, and thanks

Hi friends, firstly thanks for all the lovely comments on my last card. I've been pretty ill again and ended up in hospital after being taken to A&E one night last week. They kept me in a couple of days (the first time I've ever been in hospital, but at least there were a couple of hunky doctors!), and when I came home I was very weak and unwell. I've started to feel a bit brighter now so I wanted to come on and say sorry for not having visited many blogs. After the latest card, I was slowly getting round some blogs, a few each day, but I've not really been up to it since I came home - apologies if yours was one I didn't make it as far as. It's all I can do right now to feed myself and do simple basic stuff in the home, and I have to spend a lot of time lying down which doesn't help. Somehow, I will have to master the art of colouring in a horizontal position, ha haa.

Anyway, I read the comments on my card while I was in my hospital bed - it was soooooooooooooooooooo nice to be able to see them and they really made me smile. Thanks so much!

I've got to have some more tests, but you know how long you have to wait for appointments these days, so not sure when I'll know more. In the meantime, I'm taking really good care of myself and although I still don't feel up to crafting, I've been playing the piano when I've felt OK to sit upright instead. Also, I'm hoping to slowly pop along to say Hi and see what you've been up to.

I haven't got any new cards to show, so this is one I did ages and ages ago, just so my blog post isn't just boring text, he hee.

Guest Designer at Deep Ocean Challenge

Hello blogging friends, it's been a long while since I made a blog post - I have some health problems and haven't been well enough to do any crafting or blogging, I'm afraid. My card today is the first thing I've made in ages! I must say it's been nice to have a tidy work table these last weeks, lol, but having said that it was great to do some crafting again. Can't promise I'll be back any time soon, because apart from some Guest Design commitments, I'm going to wait till the urge to craft returns.

Now, when the lovely Franz asked me if I'd like to have a guest design spot at Deep Ocean Challenge this week, I really couldn't resist - they have such a talented team over there that it was an honour to get to play along with them. The theme for the new challenge is Deep Blue, and I interpreted this as the Deep Blue Sea. So I merged a couple of Make It Crafty Under The Sea images and made an underwater scene. The colouring is done mainly with copics, with a little pencil colouring on top in places.

I used some nice blue green shades of textured card for the background and the mats, and I embossed the paler shade with some dots. The embossing folder is actually snowdrops, but I think they look like bubbles. Some lace trim on one side of the card, and some gem branches, a flower and a bow made from some blue-green gauzy fabric finish it off.

Images used: Mermaid Lola, Mermaid Castle, and Sandy Sea Floor, digi stamps from Make It Crafty.

Here you can see the sparkles I added to the mermaid's tail, which didn't show up in the other photos. I also added some bubbles with a white gel pen after I took the pictures:



I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
A&T Challenges - Anything Goes
Colour Me Creative (CMC) - Create a Background 
Craft A Scene - Anything in the Great Outdoors
Crafts & Me - Use A Digi
Emerald Faeries Challenge - Bling
Love To Create - Sparkle
Southern Girls - Water Play
The Squirrel & The Fox - The Sea
Totally Gorjuss - Lacy Lacy
Whoopsie Daisy - Anything Goes


I'm looking forward to visiting blogs this week, I won't be able to comment on every card individually, but I do look at all the ones I've missed since I've been offline. I better keep myself supplied with cups of tea and settle in for a long session, he hee.

Have a good week all.