Colouring challenge: Colour a water scene

Hi all, this is just me getting a challenge entry in by the skin of my teeth! (again!!).  I thought I had an extra day to do this, but for some reason it's Friday and not Thursday, so I had to get a wriggle on and work into the night to colour and make this card.

Make It Colourful asked us to colour a water scene this week. I was the lucky winner last week of some Crissy Armstrong images, and I chose this one so that I could enter the MiC challenge, and phew was it a challenge! I would need to do this again as there are many things wrong, I completely messed up the beaver's face for one thing, but it's so late now and I'm so tired that I was picking up the wrong colours and making things worse, he he.  Anyway, I made the water using BG000, BG72, BG75 and a bit of B97 for the deepest shadows. For the reflections on the water, I used the same colours as in the main image, with some BG000 and BG72 mixed in as well. I've changed the photos from the ones taken last night to these that I took in daylight today.

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight challenge this week wanted us to challenge ourselves with something new, so I wanted to try colouring the water reflection. This was really quite difficult and took a long time to work out. I'd found Marianne Walker's tutorial on it so understood in principle how to go about it, but the fact that the moose's legs meet the water much closer to the viewer's eye than the pier support posts do complicated things for me.

For the card, I decided not to use patterned papers and to instead make my own backing by scrunching and sanding some coredinations cardstock. This is a technique I've wanted to try for so long but never had the right project till now, and I felt the weathered look would fit with the fishing theme and suit a man's card. I made the sentiment in WordArt, attached to it a button and some twine that I also won this week, added a few eyelets and it was done. It's for a birthday during the summer, and I think the scene is just right for that time of year.

Anyway.....here it is:

Crumpled and sanded cardstock

Image: Great Day To Fish, from Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copic markers

Sentiment: created in WordArt, font is Courier New

Materials: Cordindations cardstock, bakers twine from Ribbongirl, button & eyelets from stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments - Sentiment/card for a male
Cards for Men - No paper (I used cardstock I distressed myself)
Charisma Cards - Boy Oh Boy
Crafty Cardmakers - Spotlight on Challenge yourself (colouring a reflection in water)
Fresh Brewed (month-long challenge) - Beach or Summer (I've gone for the summer option)
Kaboodle Doodles - Distress/rip/tear/crumple (I crumpled and distressed the cardstock)
Make It Colourful - Colour a water scene
Moving Along With The Times - Holidays
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Twine, jute or string
One Stop Craft Challenge - Buttons & Bows
Paper Pretties - create a birthday card
Penny's Challenges - Here Comes Summer
Totally Gorjuss - String's The Thing
Truly Scrumptious - Anything Goes
Whoopsi Daisy - Birthday challenge

Hope you are all snoring away in the UK as it's past good crafter's bedtimes. I'm away for my beauty sleep as soon as I've done this.

Carole x

Grow Smiles

Hello everyone, how are we all doing? I'm hoping to be back blogging more regularly again following recent setbacks; after the last few days of visiting blogs I can feel the old inspiration bubbling away again. 

This is my card today.....I never give my characters blonde hair, I almost always go for black and occasionally brown, but I wanted to try to show bright light causing darker shadows at the back of my little lady's head and I felt light-coloured hair would show this better. I used the colours Y00, Y21 and Y28 to make her blonde hair, and it's a much simpler type of hair colouring than I usually do. I'm afraid I don't know what the image is, it's a digi that was printed off by a friend of mine and posted to me so if anyone knows what it is I wouldn't mind knowing the make so I can buy one myself.  Edit: Kevin has let me know that this is an Inger Harding image (thanks Kevin), and can you believe it's a freebie? You can grab this little beauty along with other gorgeous freebies here.

I used some of my favourite papers and precious Prima leaves on this, and a strip of lace ribbon and a punched border strip just finish it off.  Hope you like it.

Image: freebie Inger Harding, Flowers for You

DPs: K&Co

Colouring: Copic markers.... Hair - Y00 Y21 Y28. Dress - R00 R20 R22. Top/trousers: YG91 YG95.

Flowers - R32 R35 R37; YR31 YR61 YR23. Leaves - Y02 YG11 YG63 YG67.

Leaves: Prima

Roses & Lace from my stash

I'm entering this is these challenges:

2 Sisters - how does your garden grow?

ABC DT Challenge - April showers bring May flowers

Anything Goes Challenge - Bingo (lace, flowers, punched wavy border)

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Lace
Crafts & Me - Anything Goes

Crafty Catz - Anything Goes

Crafty Creations - May flowers, use flowers, patterned paper and ribbon (I hope the lace ribbon counts)

Crazy Challenge - Green & Pink
Creative Card Crew - Cute & girlie

Cupcake Craft Challenge - In the garden

iCopic - colour blonde hair

Kaboodle Doodles - Tic Tac Toe (digi image, lace, flowers)

Lexis Creations - Spots or stripes

Paper Pretties - Flowers

Papertake Weekly - Bloom & grow

Penny's Challenges - Anything Goes

Pixie Cottage - Sketch and/or Pink & Girly (I've just gone for the Pink & Girly)

A Spoonful of Sugar - Anything Goes

Sundays With Crissy - Flowers

Happy crafting!

Carole x

Dream Valley Challenge #7: Something Old, Something New

Good afternoon all, I hope everyone is having a good weekend.  So, another challenge at Dream Valley, and this time the theme is

"DIG OUT THE OLD TO USE WITH THE NEW"

We want you to use something NEW from your stash plus some OLD stash too.  So that could be some new papers with an old stamp or even just some old stuff recycled with a new scrap layout! Easy!!

As always you can enter anything you like, doesn't have to just be a card: scrap layouts, jewellery, altered items, anything goes as long as it follows the theme.

Our sponsor this fortnight is Digis With Attitude, and one lucky winner will receive a voucher to spend at their online store.   

Everything on my card is either brand new or old (and I mean YEARS old). The image is one from our sponsor, Digis With Attitude, which I've only just received - it's called Disco Tween. The sentiment is also from them, it was part of a prize I won recently and again the first time I've used it.  I also broke out 2 brand new copic markers on the trousers, BG72 and BG75. The paper is part of a DCVW mat stack that I've had for a few years - the stack is called All Dressed Up, which I thought suited the Disco image. All the other embellishments and the ribbon have also been knocking around my craft boxes for so long I'd forgotten I even had them. Even the card blank is an ancient one....I am trying to use up the packs of C6 card blanks I bought back when I was a baby cardmaker.



Image: Disco Tween, from Digis With Attitude
Sentiment: from Sentiment Set 1 from Digis With Attitude
Colouring: Copic markers
DP: DCWV All Dressed Up mat stack
Ribbon, heart, sequin and gem from my stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
Belli Challenge - the letter S (I have Sparkle, Stripes, Silver heart, flower Sequin, Spotty background added to image, and Sassy!). My old forgotten embellishments are the heart and the sequin, I found them when rummaging round in my embelly box for something green or silver.
By The Cute And Girly - Anything Goes
Crafty Creations - Anything Goes
Desert Island Craft Challenge - 3 or more items from list (I used No. 1 patterned paper, No. 3 glitter/bling, No. 4 ribbon, No. 5 image, No. 9 flower [the sequin])
Divas By Design - Anything Goes
Frosted Designs - use Ribbon or Twine (I used silver ribbon and some very thin green ribbon)
Incy Wincy Designs - Mothers Day/GIRLIE
Little Claire - Sparkle (glittery silver stripes in backing paper, silver sparkly ribbon, metallic silver heart, shiny sequin, flower gem, glitter on eyelids)
Make It Colourful - colour a dotty background (I put green dots around my disco girl)
Penny's Challenges - Anything Goes
Southern Girls - Let's Hear It For The Girls
Stampavie - Ribbons (I used 2, a sparkly silver one and a thin green one)


Sorry I haven't been around to visit blogs and leaving comments recently, I just haven't been well enough for blogging. I'll be back soon though, till then Happy Crafting everyone!

Carole x

Dream Valley Challenge #6 - Flowers

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great weekend. Another Sunday sees us with the next challenge at Dream Valley, and this fortnight the theme is everyone's favourite: FLOWERS. Well, as crafters, we all know that if it doesn't move we stick a flower on it, so I know there will be loads of entries for this.  Our sponsor this time is One Stop Craft Shop, and one lucky winner will receive a £10 voucher for their store.

Here's my DT card for the challenge:  this is one of my favourite images for paper-piecing, I like to layer up her dress and make each layer stand out a little over the one below.  The paper-piecing of her dress and shoes was done with the same pale aqua papers that I used for the background and a bit of shading was added with pencils.  For the background, I aged and distressed the papers, then paper-pierced all round the edges and handstitched into the holes.  I printed out a sentiment, and added lace, flowers, pearls, a bow and a heart-shaped button as decoration, along with some glitter on her hair ribbon and dress. I don't usually make cards to a layout, but Cute Card Thursday are asking us to use an old layout or make up our own, so I drew a simple one and arranged my card around it. Hope you like it.

Bow & button, swirls on the designer paper

Glitter & bling (pearls)

The sketch I made up to follow

Recipe:

Image: Magnolia, Tilda With Sunflower

DPs: K&Co, Brenda Walton

Colouring: Copic markers and Faber & Castell Polychromo pencils

Flowers: Prima Sugar Plum Roses (blue) and Fairytale Rose (yellow). Papermania (darker blue)

Pearl spray: Wild Orchid Crafts

Lace, bow, button, thread from my craft stash

Computer-generated sentiment, font is Roman Antique

I'm entering this in these challenges:

ABC DT Challenge - April Showers Bring May Flowers
Crafts & Me - Vintage/distressed
Crafty Pad - Pearls & Swirls (the swirls are in one of the DPs)

Cute Card Thursday - Use any sketch
DDH Challenges - Paper Piecing
Delightful Challenges - Distressing

Fresh Brewed Month long challenge - Flowers

Going Grey/Scrap Creations - Flowers

Incy Wincy Designs - Buttons & Bows (heart-shaped button on the white bow)

Just Magnolia & hAnglar - Buttons, Bows & Bling (heart-shaped button on the white bow, and my bling is the pearls on the pearl sprays)

Let's Ink It Up - Embellish It

Moving Along With The Times - Anything Goes

One Stop Craft Challenge - In Stitches

Ooh La La Creations - Aqua, bling and sentiment

Paper Pretties - Paper Piercing
PartyTime Tuesdays - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp & Show - Show some buttons (heart-shaped button on the white bow)

Stampavie & More - Pearls

Top Tip Tuesday - Square challenge

Totally Gorjuss - 1, 2, 3 (1 image, 2 DPs, 3 roses)

Totally Papercrafts - Glitter (dotted on her dress and on her hair ribbon)

Totally Tilda - Paper Piecing

I won't be blogging much over the next couple of weeks, so if you don't see me dropping into your blogs you'll know why. I'll be back soon though, and will catch up with all the makes I missed.  Have fun!

Carole x