Happy birthday Kelly!

Hi there!

I'm here today to say a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet friend and fellow DT member Kelly.

Kelly is just the loveliest girl and I'm so blessed to have her in my life (and on my team over at ABNH!)

A few of the girls at the blog got together to make her some bee-day cards...

Here's mine.

 

I'm in love.

So I grabbed a handful of Distress Markers and scribbled a little patch of colour from each of them (in a line obviously!) covering the entire length of my piece of watercolour paper.

Next I took a mini mister and added a few scoopfuls of Perfect Pearls into some water. I shook it up well (after I closed the lid LOL) and then I sprayed the bejiggety--thats a lot-- out of the paper. I tilted it on an angle so I would get a nice 'drippage' look (and that way the colour would spread over more of the paper).

When I was happy with it, I dried the whole thing with my heat gun, dabbing at the excess pools of liquid that appeared. Then I sprayed it some more :) I heat-set it again.

Next I ran it through my Big Shot and diecut using the GORGEOUS Memory Box die. I added a few of the butterflies that had been diecut out, onto the side of the panel and added my sentiment.

Finally I adhered it to a Shallows notecard using THICK dimensional adhesive so that I'd get a pretty shadow beneath those butterflies.

Love Love LOVE

Here are the goodies you'll need to make this card (and you really do need to make it, it's so purty in real life!!)

InLinkz.com

Thanks for stopping by!! Be sure to head over to the blog to see the other UH-MAZING cards that have been made for sweet Kelly :) and if you can, go to her blog to leave her some beeday lovin :)

*crafty hugs*

Linda xx

Neat and Tangled SALE!

Hi there!!

A quick post today, as there will be one again in a few hours. I just wanted to pop in to let you know there's a Labor Day SALE going on over at Neat and Tangled Stamps!! Free shipping (INTERNATIONAL TOO!!)

 so be sure to get over there and grab your favourites!

Linda xx

Shopping Our Stash Challenge 66 My Favourite Things

Hello!!

It's time for another Shopping Our Stash challenge and this week the theme is My Favourite Things--

"Make a card that features your favorite things. It could be brads, pretty paper, ribbon, a certain shape, stickers, rub-ons ... anything you love to put on a card."

 Now, I had a bit of trouble narrowing down exactly what my favourite thing would be--stamps for sure, but I also love glitter and ink, so I thought and thought and THOUGHT. Then I realised my absolute favourite thing about crafting is the COLOUR it brings to my world.  So I went with that.

In true Shopping Our Stash style, everything on this card has been sitting around in my (as my good friend Leslie would call it) 'heaplet' (it's like a heap but a wee bit smaller...or in my case, not)  for at least 6 months. (Some of them almost 2 years *eek!*)

The pink/rose coloured cardstock is OLD and is from American Crafts, the blingy-border is AC glitter tape (thanks sweet Chari! I love this stuff!), the 'sentiment' is from a Studio Calico kit from around 2010 (oh my...)

The central panel: SUCH a fun, quick technique and you want to know how easy?! SO FREAKIN' EASY!!

All you do is this:
Take some watercolour (or thick) cardstock
Choose some Distress Stains, open them, turn them upside down and SPLAT--let the stain bottle almost fall onto the cardstock.
Repeat with all the colours, moving around the cardstock in a random pattern.


Quick Tip: 


*When you go to SPLAT the Distress Stain, let the bottle slip through your fingers so the weight of the bottle (and the stain inside it) will make it hit the paper--this helps you to get an even splatter effect all over and gives that great starburst look. If you do it too purposefully/carefully the splatter tends to look quite circular and neat.

(told you it was so easy!)

SO fun!! I can't wait to do blog this again.

Be sure to stop by the and check out the rest of the DT's projects and make something yourself if you can :)

Thanks for dropping by!

*crafty hugs*

Linda xx

Neat and Tangled special project!

Hi everyone!

I'm over at Neat and Tangled today to show you a special project :)


Here's a sneaky peek :)

Be sure to pop by and leave me some love! (I'm desperate for love you know LOL)

You'll even get to check out the colour I picked for our hallway walls--I know, you're excited, me too!!


Linda xoxoox

Meeting Hello Sandwich

Hi hi!!

Public Service Announcement: this is a wordy post. :)

A couple of months ago I stumbled across a blog post that offered 101 ideas for ways to use Washi Tape (or something like 101)...on the list of links and suggestions, was a url for the blog Hello Sandwich.

Hello Sandwich is the 'stage name' (I guess you could call it that!) for an amazingly talented crafter named Ebony. She's Aussie, she lives in Japan and she loves Washi tape. (Hello Mirror more like it! lol)

AAaaanyhoo, I stalked followed her blog and watched her super cute youtube videos, (in-chair-danced to the music on the videos lol) even bought her e-zine which is choc-a-block full of CUUUTE ideas for washi (among other items).

Everything about her blog is UBER-Japanese. Lots of white space, LOTS of cute graphics, lots of splashes of colour in delightful ways. In short--I'm in love.

I digress.

So a few weeks back I found out she was going to be holding a class in Australia--MELBOURNE!!! I looked into it but unfortunately it was on a day when hubs works, so there was no chance to go...until she decided to add on an extra class on the following Monday (hubs' day off!!)... so I went.

Long story short, it was madness and I made the hour+ trip into the city, got hopelessly lost, came home distraught that I'd missed out. I contacted the workshop venue and left a message explaining how disappointed I was to have missed it but that I couldn't find the place ANYWHERE...

Then I got a call from Hello Sandwich herself asking if I would come back to craft with her for whatever time there was left of the class. So I did. I drove back into the city (another hour+ travel plus crazy traffic!) I got there FINALLY *phew*

and boy am I glad I did...I'll give you the rest in photos :)

class in progress :)

 Those are my things on the bottom :) The class made the bags at the top of the photo (and you can see everyone holding in the photo below. Hello Sandwich was SO lovely and gave me the ones she made as demonstration for everyone, so I'd have something to take home :)

Some of the adorable things on display made by Hello :)

I can't wait to sit down and make make make after this class I'm bursting full of ideas.


I've never crafted with other people before and it was SO fun. I can't wait to do it again!

If you would like to buy Hello Sandwich's zine or new book--go to her blog www.hellosandwich.blogspot.com.au/  I recommend it--such cute ideas!

Thank you SO much to Hello Sandwich for not only holding a fun, fabulous class, but for taking the time to contact me personally and asking me to come back. I'm so glad you did!

Love love

Linda xx

SOS Sketch challenge!

Hello!

I'm back with another Shopping Our Stash challenge!

This week, you gotta use a sketch!  I don't often follow sketches for some reason, but when I do, gee the card comes together quickly!

I chose this fab one from Retro Sketches

So here is the card:

I used Neat and Tangled stamps, Lawn Fawn papers, Hero Arts notecard and the inks are Tumbled Glass (around the edges to create the sky) and Versafine (THANKS CHARI!! It's *the* nicest ink)

It's ALL paper pieced. Even the doorknob, the doorframe, the window PANES (as well as the window itself)...crazy I am.

I glued the wood hearts onto some paper (the back of the paper) then trimmed around them very carefully. I added some stickles at the end ;) Who doesn't love glittery hearts floating out of a chimney?!

Here are the goodies I used: 

InLinkz.com

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to pop over to the SOS blog now to see what the rest of the DT made!! Hope you'll enter your own creation in!!

Linda xx

Video Tutorial: Prismacolour Pencils on Kraft

Hi!

After I posted this card:

I had a few friends on twitter (and in the comments) say they weren't confident using Prismacolor Pencils when colouring.

They were unsure how to do the blending, didn't think they could do it. But honestly, its SO easy.

I am FAR from the world's most proficient colourer (colourist?!) but with a little practise, you can get results just like mine in the card above--and even better than that.

I've made a video "tutorial" on how to do it :)

So a few tips that I have found work for me:

• Use the 72 pack--if you can afford it, they are an investment, but the pencils in the larger set are MUCH waxier and creamier. This makes for flawless blending with much less effort. (There are also MANY more colours to choose from in the larger set :))
• When sharpening your pencils, our natural instinct is to hold the pencil in our dominant/writing hand and the sharpener in the other. If you swap hands (so that the pencil is in your less dominant hand), you'll break the leads MUCH less frequently, because you're putting less pressure on the pencil as you turn it in the sharpener. It also tends to stop you over-sharpening (which can also lead to broken/fallen out leads), and a ridiculously pointy/sharp pencil tip, will show up on your page very dark, I prefer my pencils sharp, but with a very slightly rounded tip (You'll see this in the video)
• This is going to sound odd, but trust me: Find how your hand colours the most comfortably (which position your hand is in). For me, I colour best when moving the pencil left and right (on a slight angle), so I move the cardstock/paper (whatever I'm colouring) around, so that my hand stays in the same place. If I try to keep the image still but move my hand around the paper, my colouring ends up awful and choppy. Find what works for you.
• Don't hold the pencil too tight/firmly. 1) your hands wont cramp up after you've been colouring for ages, and 2) you'll have a much more natural 'movement' in your colouring, which will look better.
• Hold the pencil a little way up from the end. If you grip the pencil very close to the actual point/lead then your colouring will only be able to fill a tiny area, and you'll have to keep moving your hand around, this tends to make it look less smooth (plus it's tiring!) Holding the pencil further up the 'shaft' of the pencil will also allow you to get into those little fiddly spaces more comfortably.
• Colour each little section of your images (eg. if it's a person, their hair, their shirt, their pants etc etc, if its a flower, each petal) in the same direction for the entire space. If you're moving your pencil left-right (and back and forth), then colour the entire petal/shirt in that 'direction'. If you colour parts of it in left-right movements, then switch to up-down (like a small child would do), you'll find blending is difficult and the image wont look smooth--it will look like a patchwork quilt!
• try not to hunch over your work. Sit close enough that you can see the image (of course!) but if you can sit back a little, so that you can see the WHOLE image (not just the tiny space you're working on), you'll get a better overall effect.
• work in small sections--it's less overwhelming! If colouring a whole page of flowers (like on my card), I work one petal at a time, then I look at the whole flower (singularly) to see if it all suits. Then I move onto the next flower, petal by petal. If I look at the entire piece I have to colour, I get overwhelmed and I tend to rush--never a good idea :)
• If you're REALLY against the image looking pencil-coloured (or hand-coloured), you can purchase 'blending' solutions (eg Gamsol) and use them after you've coloured everything. Using a blending stump (a pencil made out of tightly wound paper) and Gamsol, takes away all the stroke marks that come from colouring with pencil. ***however, Personally I LIKE my images to look like I've coloured them myself, and using the technique I showed in the video (going back over the entire area with your palest colour) will give you a VERY blended look anyway.

Hope this helps! I hope you'll give colouring a try, its so fun when you figure out what works best for you.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments!

Enjoy :)

Linda xxx

InLinkz.com

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Prismacoloured Poppies

Hi there!

This is the card I actually meant to post on ABNH the other day lol, but thats ok.

I'm entering it into the Hero Arts August challenge. It's CAS (its only one layer other than the gems) and I used the bottom right-hand sketch as inspiration. I flipped the image so the 'strip' was on the left hand side and instead of patterned paper, I did it with the flowers, then shifted the sentiment over a wee bit. Couldn't bring myself to stamp right onto (or over) those flowers.

First I stamped the HA Friend Definition using Memento Toffee Crunch ink, then the flowers in Tuxedo Black. I coloured them in with Prismacolour pencils and added a soft white outline all around the image, it helps to make the flowers reach up off the page a bit more.
Next I stamped my sentiment and added the gemstones, before adhering the whole lot onto a white cardbase!

Oh! and I wanted to mention something, the Prismacolor pencils that are in the big 72 pack, are MUCH nicer and 'more heavily pigmented' (they show up on the page better) than the smaller packs. I'm not sure if they're all made the same way, but these seem waxier too--which makes for better blending. So if you can, save up and make the investment in the big set--its so worth it! (I've linked the correct set below :))


I think I'll be making this card a few times over, I really love the effect.

Thanks so much for looking!

Crafty hugs

Linda xx

InLinkz.com

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