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Thursday, 25 February 2016

Thanks XOXO



I had to colour up this stamp again, I think she is so cute. And as I was colouring her I was thinking I could send this to a friend who would interpret it the same as me. When saying Thanks in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) we take the open hand and place  the fingertips onto the chin then tap away. We don't pucker up to blow a kiss but it looks so close to what we are seeing here.

Thats why I added the sentiment 'Thanks'.

I have coloured her with copics and tried to be a little bit lighter handed with my colours.  Finished her off with her own beautiful glow flowing off her in pale pale green.


I have kept it nice and simple and just added the gold die cut 'Thanks' and 'XOXO' and a 1" strip of purple cardstock down each side on the card.


Ooh I love that green colour on her dress. Its just such a yum green.

I would like to enter this in:





Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.










Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star....do you know how loved you are!


Decided to have another go at a shaker card but this time I decided I needed to use up the square and circle shaker shapes I had bought ohhhh so long ago. Of course now people are making their own windows for shaker cards and adding dimensional foam and acetate or using the Fuse tool so it has truly moved on but I just wanted to use up these supplies.
At first of course I was going to make a pile of cards but actually never got past the one completed one and the three false starts in the bin. One actually made it to being complete with the same as this one but somehow I managed to double bounce the sentiment so when I put the embossing powder on I could see it wasn't going to work soooo I decided to do another cover to stick over the top with the same sentiment BUT.....  nah I am going to stop there, needless to say the first completed one ended up with a heat warped shaker top. I left the room and waited till today and of course it all fell into place perfectly.
Moral of the story is 'if at first you don't succeed, nor the second or third or fourth then walkaway and come back another day'. At some stage it will work and look just thawed you wanted. 

The background here is a piece of watercolour paper and I have added  blue and purple Brusho's.

Before I stuck on the clear square I have stuck down some sequins and stars and a couple of clear glitter gems. The rest just shake around in there.

This slight side on one probably shows the colour the best of the background. Silver embossed sentiment 'twinkle twinkle little star..... Do you know how loved you are!' and all finished off with a cute little teddy clear gem.

Okay time to enter this in




Thanks for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.


Dad turns 90. Yep he has hit the big 90 and this Saturday is the big party (well afternoon tea with lots of cake and coffee and his favourite Black forest Cheesecake Even though I made it for him for Christmas I am going to really spoil him and give him another one).

So of course he needs a card and as he has a great sense of humour I decided to go with old Gus in his swimmers cause his attitude is just like dads.





Coloured with Coloursoft pencils and babyoil. Even the sentiment is a digital one, one I wish I had as a stamp but you cant have everything. Finished off with a whale button up at the corner. 
Then I had to add a few sentiments inside. I went looking for some good old snarky sentiments and ended up I couldn't decide between the last three so I added one each side on the inside of the card.


This one first cause I always tease him about being an old fart (sorry if thats impolite but if it gets a smile & a laugh from him, then I'll use it)

Then this one with this ending

and finally I had one folder with handwritten message 'couldn't resist'

If I manage to get a photo of the day I'll share. Those of you who have gotten to know me over the last 10 months can see where I got my sense of humour from when I say this will give my dad a good laugh.






Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Thank you Butterfly


After I finished colouring in my flowers last night I got thinking wonder how a No-lines butterfly would look? No time like the present to find out.
I stamped this butterfly that is really a very big image. I stamped in a pale Distress Ink and started playing around.

I  coloured with copics and added some white dots with my gel pen and then brushed over the whole thing with Wink of Stella for some sparkle. This photo shows it best, if you click on it and enlarge you can see the sparkle. In this photo its looking a bit selective (like a bit of dandruff here and there lol)

After I had finished colouring the butterfly the big decision became how to add this to a card.
I tried a number of card stocks, patterned papers and finally hit on this wonderful gold paper. It just works!
I die cut with my oval stitched die then decided to use a green  card base so again I die cut the oval so I could set the gold layer flat with the green. I then stamped the butterflies antenna in black staz-on ink so it would not rub off. Glued the butterfly flat onto the gold base at the body of the butterfly and added some dimensional tape under the wings so I could get a bit of lift. Die cut the 'thank you' words three times, glued them together then added to the card base. Finished off with these clear sparkly gems.

I love how the butterfly turned out but not sure it is really right for this technique as butterflies do have black outlines and patterns on them in real life. But I did enjoy this experiment.

Would like to enter this at



Hope this counts after saying it does, I did stamp the butterfly before colouring and cutting out.



Ok thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.











Monday, 22 February 2016

Happy Birthday , No Lines Colouring.


I have been trying to get to this card for the last week after seeing Tracey McNeelys' beautiful inspiration card on Muse Challenge #153


I love clusters of flowers and clusters of three and the colours she has used.

I kept getting busy with other things and had to keep putting the card off and the biggest problem for me is I have so many flower stamps its like 'which one will I use' and the funny thing is I have gone for one of my oldest sets and pretty near one of the first sets I bought. I love this flower.


This is the first time I have done no-line colouring for this stamp and I started out thinking I have bitten off more than I can chew here. I stamped each flower in the Distress Ink colour for the colour of the flower I wanted to do. Then when I added the first coat of copic to the front flower the petals all blended together and I struggled to work out individual petals and shadows.

But I got it done.  And Ruth don't have a heart attack started an hour and a half ago and still have 2 hrs 10 minutes to spare before the challenge closes. Mind you no one will have seen it but hey I did it.

After all my colouring I added a bit of pencil to the copics to help define some areas. Added a few clear sparkly gems and stamped Happy Birthday. All one layer - wahoooo

Now time to add this to:




I've just gone with no topping in this instance.

Okay thanks for coming to visit and hope to see you again soon.








Friday, 19 February 2016

Life is like a balloon...... using Molotow Masking Fluid; translucent embossing paste; Copic background and Distress Inks.


Love this sentiment and the image it goes with. Its another of Mo's Digital Pencil images and this sweet little dog pops up all over the place. Here I tried out a couple of different techniques and thought I would give my feedback on what I though of them.

Okay the first is I decided to try using a masking solution so I could colour with the copics and not worry about accidentally colouring over the image as I was using a dark blue copic mix.
I used a new to me product called 'Molotov' Art Masking Liquid. You are meant to use it much like a pen just laying down this blue coloured fluid to protect the area you don't want to get anything else on. I love that its blue therefore you can see where it is.
But it was not so easy to use and I don't know if it was 
a) because I am left handed - don't laugh at that, sometimes things do not work as well for left handers as for right handers because they are designed in particular ways. I am unable to use the Tim Holtz scissors that are designed for cutting out stamps and the foam backing with my left hand, they make a mess.
anyway
b) maybe I was not using the correct way, I did do as directed and found I needed to sort of bounce the tip upland down on piece of paper a number of times before I got a good flow. Then I found it would work for a bit then stop, I would bounce again and end up with too much coming out. Some spots I had to do little blobs rather than pulling the pen along. Some areas I worried were too lightly covered and had to wait for first bit to try before adding more. If I went back too soon it started to lift.

It worker perfectly in protecting the image but when I rubbed it off ready to colour I felt there were little itty bits that would not lift and it roughened up the copic card stock a bit.
Maybe I used it wrong, will have to think on this and experiment some more. Maybe someone out there has a suggestion.

See this image, this was the first dog I coloured in and I cut him out and was going to lay on a coloured background but he fell victim to the flying spots of Brusho's from my previous experiments. Lots of little dark blue spots and when I added just water to some they became yellow (probably they were also Brusho colours lol). So he was for the bin but I used him to mask the dog the second time when I decided to add some embossing paste with a shimmery white from my Silks added to it for stars.

It was translucent paste so the stars are only just visible. I then coloured my dog with barely there grey copics and did my balloons as though you could see the ones behind.

The night sky I did with a mix of blues and I only have one dark colour (soon to be remedied) so mixed the dark with two other blues and a wee bit of purple. I did light around the dog and balloons first then mixed all the colours together. I did this very messy as I didnt want it to be all straight and lined up. I also used the colourless blender on a piece of flannel I have that gives a bit of texture to the sky. I must say I'm not keen on this colouring of a large area with copics, the pens and refills are quite expensive and I love using them but I hate that I end up emptying a pen for a picture.
If I ever get the money I would like to try airbrushing the copics but thats in the future somewhere.

I wasn't happy with this card in the end and cant image giving to anyone as it looks rather thrown together but it has let me try a few techniques and I think by sharing people get to see the not so greats with the happy withs and the love this's.

I have also been playing with my Distress Inks when down at mum and dads and made myself a practice sheet. 

Here I have stamped a beautiful rose stamp I have had forever repeatedly onto this white cardstock. Its not the proper cardstock for what I wanted to do but for some reason I just grabbed it. It is glossy on the otherside and had been marked so I think I was thinking 'waste not, want not'. Anyhoooo I have stamped and white embossed the flower a number of time then decided to add some leaves.

This is one of the more completed roses.  I have used Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick for the whole project. A bit of Mustard Seed for the centres and Shabby Shutters for the leaves. All done in very very light coats. Mainly because this is not watercolour paper and it just cant be played with too much. To stop it pilling I would only do small bits at a time and really let it dry well between touch ups.

Some of the flowers are nearly completed and others only with shadow added. Don't know that I will ever do anything with this but its been good for practice. The cardstock itself is too think to fussy cut the flowers out.
But I have enjoyed doing this and realise I need to play with my Distress Inks more often. We all spend so much time looking at new products and wanting to have them, forgetting that we have such good multi purpose products in front of us. 

When I think of Distress Inks they were the first coloured inks I bought and I remember pondering long and hard whether to get them. My girlfriend and I made an order for the ink pads and I added the refills. My order was probably twice the size of hers because I always want all the colours. It was such a big thing 'will I use them?' 'is there enough use for them?' 'what else can I do other than just paint and stamp with them' Do I really need the refills?'.
The best purchase I have ever made I think. The ink pads seem to stay juicy forever, the refills are fantastic for other projects. I discovered the art of painting in heavy and light amounts and I discovered that wonderful technique of blending that people were doing. Using the ink pads to stamping over the top of a wash or for no line colouring. I have not used the distress ink pens, just way too expensive for products like that to come to Australia - exchange and postage. Also found I am quite happy with the ink refills. I have a container I made out of an old SU Chalk box I think there are 40 little squares - I cleaned this out and put the inks in - will take a photo and share one day.
I did send a comment to Tim Holtz at one time but never got a response saying that I wish they would come up with a container that could hold all the inks in little wells that would seal air tight - yes I know its probably impossible but it would be nice to take a container with a bit of every colour instead of the ink pads and palette to squish them on or the little refill bottles.

Boy have I waffled today. I am only doing the one link today just to show I have coloured and I hope that someone reads my big blurb, you never know it could come in handy.



Thanks for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.





Thanks


I decided to do another flower from the copic online colouring class. This flower I did in the stronger colours and I made the panel under the image using the red colours I had used on top. I also made a panel out of stamping with Hero Art Charcoal colour ink and pulled the card stock through the ink pad to give a bit of colour around the edge of the cardstock.


As you can see I added a touch of Wink of Stella to give a bit of bling to the card. Here you can see the colouring on the second layer of white cardstock which I did to mimic the colours of the flowers. Great way to get some matching colour going if you don't have the right colour in coloured cardstock. I have also cut around the image in a slight rectangle size but then fussy cut with my scissors when the petals jutted out from the rectangle. Its a cool look I think and added something to the card.


I used a coral coloured piece of cardstock for the main part of the card and die cut the 'thanks' to add to the bottom.

Okay I would like to enter this in:


My favourite Shape - Rectangles - Why because I love being able to put them at an angle, always feel it gives the card a nice relaxed look and also cause I suffer from crooked eye (no matter how hard I try nothing ever lines up properly and this style allows me to stop worrying and enjoy what I love doing - two for the price of one.)


Thank you for coming to visit and please come again soon.







Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Good things come to those who wait.


I think this cat looks so 'evil' just sitting there on that lump of cheese just waiting....... but I couldn't resist colouring him in. Another of Mo's Digital images. I actually coloured him in using the technique I learnt at the Copic Online Colouring Class, using only small amounts of grey and blending back with the colourless blender, this really works brilliantly and I love the end result.

Then I did his eyes and I used a two greens and a yellow to get the 'glow' in his eyes.
After I coloured the image I added Glossy Accents to the cheese and collar, I decided to pass on the eyes as I was worried the Glossy Accents in that large area would distort the image.


After I had finished colouring and Glossy Accents, I die cut with the rectangle die that cuts out all those little dots and added some dimensional foam to the back to lift it off the card slightly. The layer over the top of the white card base is vellum with a light green pattern on it. Again I cut this to the same size as the card front with about 1/2" extra added to the length so it could fold over the top of the card and attach from the back.I use my bone folder to help make a firm fold in the vellum as it is quite a thick vellum. It works brilliantly with this coloured image.


Instead of attaching gems I added a wee green bell to his collar with a bit of glue to hold it in place.. To ground the image I added grey dots for the ground and yellow dots representing cheese bits.

Okay time to add this to:

Just past the half way mark.




Thanks for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.