Challenges & Some Published Cards

Hi everyone!  Thanks for popping by. I have a few cards to share with you today.

First up is a card for the sketch challenge over at Some Odd Girl.  Here’s my card using their lovely sketch and the Snuggle Tia image, she’s sooo cute!  I’m like that when I snuggle my little dog, Lulu!  Pets bring so much happiness.


I’m going to link this one up to Paper Issues’ latest challenge called Go Green or Go Home!  Don’t forget about my discount code (in my sidebar to the right), you can save 20% each time you shop over there just by quoting my code!

Next up is another little birthday card.  There’s a new challenge blog called Retro Sketches, and as you know I do love my sketches so I thought I’d join in on the fun.  The sketch is a really versatile one so it was more about how to stop ideas for this one than it was to know where to start!


I have no idea who this little image is by.  This was another one of those ones that I won but never wrote down the name, oops!  If anybody knows then do let me know so that I can give credit to it.

Colouring pinks with Copics is soooo hard, I find the darker pinks just don’t work that well for me, the mid colour always goes more orangey.

Finally I wanted to share some cards with you that were recently published in the TTCRD magazine. 

Hope you’re having a great day.  I’ll be back tomorrow with some more Play Date Cafe fun.

InLinkz.com

PDCC & Some Snowman Fun

Hello again!

We have another fun Color Splash over at The Play Date Cafe this week.  This time the challenge is to use black, white and a splash of aqua.  My aqua is looking a bit blue but I promise it is aqua, I think it's the background colour I used.



I chose to make this little snowman tag using Paper Smooches stamps and a sentiment from Lawn Fawn.  I had this yummy die from Memory Box which needed using.  I’ve started using these on my Christmas pressies.

We have a fun sponsor this week, Cindy Coutts. She makes some gorgeous things. She’s offering up a fun prize too, for more information pop over to our main PDCC blog.


You’ll also see some more yumminess from our DT girls while you’re there too so make sure you visit their blogs and leave some love.

Must dash, lots more cards to make that really do need to be posted!

Color Me Creative & Gratitude

Today we are running a ‘Colours of the Sea’ challenge over at Color Me Creative.



We are being sponsored by the lovely Michelle Perkett’s Studiowho kindly let us choose a mermaid image so I chose this pretty girl with her stunning flowing hair.  Thank you for my fab image, she was so much fun to colour, really therapeutic!

For this challenge I used the mermaid image to use on the front cover of a Gratitude Journal.  I’m a bit later posting my challenge this time because I’ve been quite poorly the past few days so trying to be grateful was a bit of a challenge when you ache from head to foot and feel like you’re dying lol, but I was grateful for a lovely warm, cozy bed, for my attentive family that kept me plied in painkillers, drinks and plumped pillows (and gave me the peace and quiet that I needed), for my little dog that curled herself up on the bed beside me as I slept and for my Kindle that meant I didn’t even have to turn a page when my arms couldn’t quite make it!!  We can often take so many things for granted and I know for me I often have to remind myself to live in the moment. There are truly so very many things to be grateful for if you take the time to look for them.

I have always been someone that tries to see the cup half full instead of half empty and I think part of this comes from the fact that I endeavour to be grateful for all that I have in life.  It’s so easy to get embroiled in everyday life that it’s easy to miss the small beauty in everything we do.  Often as a family we play a game where we have to list the top 10 things we’re grateful for.  I thought this little journal would be a great way to record these things.  Ok, so it’s only one page, but it’s a start!  Thanks to my teamie Stacy (Rodriguez) for encouraging me to make a start on my mini book!

So for my picture I used lots of blues and blue-greens and then accented with reds for her shells for some contrast.  I find you have to be a bit careful with some of the Copic lids because some seem darker than others but actually aren’t, for example BG15’s lid looks lighter than BG13, as does B28 & B26, so I just lie them down in a row of three and that way I make sure I pick up the right one!  It sounds basic, but trust me it’s frustrating when you keep picking up the wrong one!

I’m not sure you can see her sparkle but I added some Spica pen to the reds for a bit more shimmer, and then added some pearls using my Viva Pearl Pen. I’m slowly starting to get a better finish on skin colouring, I find if I lay down my E00 first and then add my darker E11 for the darker areas, then blend that out with E00 it seems to be a bit more even in coverage.  It’s a bit like foundation, only harder lol

The page size is 4 3/8" x 5 1/2". I stamped the sentiments using stamps from the Gratitude Journal set and added a strip of red plus a die cut behind the main panel for a bit of interest.
I am entering this journal cover into 3 challenges…

The Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge using this sketch that I turned on its side..


I’m also entering it into the Alphabet Challenge to create something ‘Under the Sea’ and into Card Mad Fairy’s to add texture which I did with the pearls and hopefully with my shading to her hair.

Here are the details of the challenge….

** COLORS of the SEA!! **
Use colors associate with the ocean, it’s marine-life, shells and mermaids!

You may use any image you like but you must use colors of the sea to color it with your copics!!  (but we'd love, love to see you use an image that is sea-inspired)

We want to see you use YOUR COPICS, COPIC REFILLS OR COPIC AIRBRUSH SYSTEM (Or ProMarkers if you have them)


Use Inspiration Pictures Below as well!


A bit stuck for inspiration?  Pop by the rest of the team to see what they’ve created for you!

Charlene Randall (head gal)

Brook Guinn

Anary Baumgarth

Melanie LaBelle

Marie Gamber

Pat St. Martin

Jenn Cochran

Michele Spera

Sandie Dunne

Dana Joy

Steph Lee

Suzanne Foard

Andi Murdock

Shelby Goolsby

Hazel Parr

Renkata Pacheva

So go and grab yourself an image to colour, pick up those pens, and get colouring, you’ve got loads of time to join in the fun and to win a fab prize too!  For more details on that pop on over to the main Color Me Creative blog.  You could also be our guest designer too!

This time we have two guest designers, we couldn’t make our minds up!  We have Angela Woods & Anne Brown so pop on by and say hello to them too.

There are loads of fantastic classes over at Color Me Creative to sign up to as well, you really won’t be disappointed.  It’s great being able to watch the videos again and again as you practice.

Over time I hope to share the rest of my journal with you as it progresses.  In the meantime have fun!

InLinkz.com

Color Me Creative & help from a fluffy friend!

Hi everyone

I hope you’re enjoying the sunshine, it seems mad that it’s so hot out there when it’s October!  Not that I’m complaining, it’s beautiful.

Today I have a card to share with you for Color Me Creative using a distressing technique.  Your card for the challenge needs to be coloured in a distressed, vintage, primitive, shabby-chic manner!

This technique is intended to replicate the look of distressed inks using Copics.  It’s also aimed at a higher level than I’m at so it took me a while to to practice and then to stop procrastinating and just get it finished, but then just as I was ready my daughter and I both fell ill!  She’s still got the nausea, I got the flu-type symptoms, so between us Ian has had his work cut out looking after two princesses lol.

I kind of ‘cheated’ because I used the same Magnolia image that Suzanne used in her video in Class 4 so I could see exactly how to colour her, but then in my defence it is a jump up of two classes where I’m only on class 2 lol and I didn't feel so hot.  I’m really quite pleased with how she’s come out, it was fun trying something completely different.  I love the effect that adding W1 & W3 can have to a picture where it ages it.

If you look closely at my background you will see some green markings.


These were made with a little help from a fluffy friend!  I made the mistake of dozing off on the sofa and leaving my half finished picture next to me. 




My little fluffball, Lulu, decided to stomp all over it after Ian had been cutting the lawn!!  So while it looks like distress ink it is in fact grass stained paw prints, you should try this technique sometime, I’d highly recommend it lol.  Recreating it might be a tad tricky, and I had to hand it to her she did completely avoid the main image which was helpful otherwise there would have been more than feathers flying in this house!! Actually some of the edging is distress ink, I used two colours to age it, but I was heavily influenced in my choice of colours thanks to Lulu!

My background papers were aged using a sanding block.  I added lace to the middle layer before attaching the main panel, each layer is pop dotted for dimension.  The main panel was hand torn and then the edges inked. To finish off the card I tied on a little die cut tag with some twine to continue the natural look.

I hope you like it, I don’t normally play with Tilda images, so this is a first for me.  How lucky was I that I got a Tilda that I could colour along with Suzanne on her video!  This made this poorly girl very happy!

My card was made using this sketch from Papertake Weekly Challenge.


Pop on over and see what the other girls have created..

Charlene Randall	Brook Guinn
Anary Baumgarth	Melanie LaBelle
Marie Gamber	Pat St. Martin
Jenn Cochran	Michele Spera
Sandie Dunne

and before I go I have some fun design team news to share with you!!!  We have some new girls joining our the CMC team, they are all so lovely.  So without further ado, let us welcome the following girls;

Andi Murdock	Hazel Parr
Shelby Goolsby	Suzanne Foard (Suzy Q)
Steph Lee	Dana Joy
Renkata Pacheva

I am really enjoying Suzanne’s online classes, there are so many fun techniques to learn.  In class 2 my next lesson is all about colouring wood which sounds fun.  If anyone has any good wood images they can recommend let me know, my supplies seem quite limited in that area!

What I really enjoy about the classes is that Suzanne passes on her art knowledge too, so you don’t just learn about colouring but you learn how to look at objects in a different way, she teaches you about folds of material and looking at different shapes etc. 

Hope you play along with us for our latest challenge, there's prizes up for grabs too so pop on over and see what you could win.

Have a great afternoon/evening.

InLinkz.com

Make A Splash!!

Hello and happy Wednesday!!

I have a happy little cutesie card to share with you today. The theme over at Paper Issues is ‘Make A Splash’.  I’ve linked up a couple of things up but wanted to make something special too.



Natasha, my 11 year old, fell off the climbing frame at school a while ago and to cut a very long story short, has torn her cartilage and is now having hydrotherapy to help her walk without crutches.  We wanted to say thank you to the physiotherapist that’s helping her, she has really made the sessions fun and Natasha looks forward to going each week.  She is slowly making progress now thank goodness  

I thought this little Lawn Fawn ‘Critters in the Sea’ set was perfect for the job matched with some Echo Park Papers ‘Summer Days’ and some twine from The Twinery.  It’s a shame that you can’t see the bubbles, they are 3d where I used glossy accents, they look so cute in real life.  I love that stuff!!

I’m entering this card into the Craft Your Passion challenge, Under the Sea.
I’ve linked up these little cards that I made for Color Me Creative challenges to Paper Issues, I thought they both go really well for the Make A Splash theme, what will you link up?  There’s still a few days to go!





Don’t forget to pop on over to the Paper Issues Etsy Shop, you can pick yourself up some lovely crafting supplies.  I’ve got my eye on this organza trim … isn’t it pretty?!



Hope you all have a whale of a time! (Sorreeee, I couldn't resist!)