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Friday 26 February 2016

Distress Ink Tutorial 4 - Hair Basics - Blonde/Langton Paper

Hello everyone! Well I finally managed to finish editing my tutorial for colouring hair with distress inks. Sorry it's taken me so long, it's been a bit of a learning curve learning to use the YouTube video editor, but I've learned a lot and recently downloaded a trial version of  some video editing software so that I can edit first before uploading which should mean a faster upload time and quicker viewing.

For this video I'm showing you how I colour blonde hair and add shadows and some depth. In my next tutorials I'll be showing black hair on Canson Montval paper, and also how I add extra definition and texture to both the blonde and black hair, and yes don't worry I will be covering how I colour clothing as well, I won't leave her unfinished.


The image I'm colouring here is May, from Saturated Canary. You can find her in Krista's shop but I warn you you'll be tempted by many others just saying !

My video can be watched below or you can watch it on my YouTube channel here



Hope you like it and find it helpful!

You can find the first 3 videos in the series by following the links below

Tutorial 3 - Skin

Tutorial 2 - Prepping your Image

Tutorial 1 - Materials & Equipment

See you soon! :) xx

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Divine Tilda - New Challenge at Deep Ocean Challenge

Hello to my lovely followers old and new. I hope this week is treating you well. 
We have a new challenge up over at Deep Ocean Challenge Blog, and this time the theme is 
Lovely Lace.

Super easy right?

Today I've pulled out one of my Magnolia stamps, its been a while since I coloured one up. 
This is Divine Tilda, and as well as using lace on my card, I thought that her little dress and hair bows looked kind of lacy too.


I coloured her with my distress ink markers to match this lush paper from the Maja Design 
'Enjoying Outdoors' Collection. Lot's of lovely purples and magentas in this collection.

I used the following colours:
Vintage Photo, Victorian Velvet, Antique Linen, Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord & Walnut Stain.
I added lashings of Wink of Stella to her dress and hair bows but I just could not get the camera to pick up the sparkle.


I added a couple of beautiful butterflies from Karla's Kreative Korner, love these!


and lots of lovely embellies from the Ribbon Girl.


I do hope you can join in with our challenge, and don't forget to stop by the blog for the rest of the fab makes from the team!

Have a great week! :) xx

Monday 22 February 2016

Precious Time for Noor! Design UK

Hi everyone. It's my last post for Noor! Design UK today as Tracy's guest and yep you guessed it, I'm running late again. The past couple of weeks have just been a hectic time, but luckily it should start calming down for me a bit next week. So as you can tell time is a precious thing to me at the moment and that leads us rather neatly into my project today.

I must admit that I was completely out of my comfort zone with this one as I don't really play with mixed media a lot. When Tracy first asked me if I fancied decorating one of the MDF clocks I thought I'd do something very steampunk inspired, but it really didn't work out. So I've been putting this one off till the end lol.
In the end I've gone for shabby chic with a bit of steampunk fusion with the addition of the gears and clock face die. I hope you like it.


I primed my clock with plenty of gesso before adding the paper, crackle glaze and gluing together.
Love that distress glitter, it's fabulous, mind you it get's everywhere lol!


I added lots of Crackle Glaze, I really like the way it adds interest here.


Adding some leaves in among your flowers really helps to break them up when you have a lot of them together, and adds extra interest.

and I finished off with a lock and key and more gesso.
Flowers, twine and pearls are from the Ribbon Girl and my stash.

I hope you like my make today, I've really enjoyed my time as a guest with Noor! Design UK, even if I have had to step out of my comfort zone at time. Thank you so much Tracy for inviting me.


Sunday 21 February 2016

Wee Stamps - Wee One. New Challenge at The Ribbon Girls


Good Morning! I hope you're all having a great weekend :)  Mine has been filled with crafting and for those of you waiting on my video on colouring hair with distress inks, I have filmed it, but it took almost all day yesterday to upload (we have sloooooow internet where I live and I was so tired I forgot to upload overnight), so I'm still in the process of editing it. It should be ready to share soon

But enough of videos and on to my post for this morning. It's that time of month for a new 'Any Image' challenge over at The Ribbon Girls Blog, and as always it's anything goes. For my inspiration I'm sharing this super sweet baby card that I made for a special friend who's also super sweet. She's just given birth to a little girl, so I wanted to make a special baby girl card for her.

This wonderful stamp  called Wee One from Whimsy's Wee Stamps collection, drawn by the wonderful Sylvia Zet was just the thing, and I coloured her as usual with my distress ink markers.

I really like the way the finished card looks, and I hope she does too!


I used the following colours:
Vintage Photo, Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Hickory Smoke, Black Soot.
I used lashings of Wink of Stella on the frills of the pram, but as usual I could not get it to show on the photographs, no matter how I adjusted my lights.


The pretty papers are from Maja Design, I used Go Kreate dies for my card base and Die-namics dies to frame my image. The rocking horse die is from La-La Land Crafts. I edged all my papers with Walnut Stain distress ink.


I kept the decoration on the inside of the card very simple, just echoing the patterns and shapes from the front

I used the following embellishments from The Ribbon Girl


First prize:  £10 voucher for LOTV
Second prize:  £10 voucher for The Ribbon Girl
Third prize:  Mystery prize from Marianne Designs
.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the team's awesome makes on the blog, I hope to see your's there too!

That's all from me but I'll be back later with something a little different :) xx

Thursday 18 February 2016

Wee Stamps - Sweetie - Inspirational Post for The Ribbon Girl

Morning everyone! Hope you are doing well. It's been very cold here recently, in fact when I finally got home from work last night, it was so cold my hands just couldn't craft....all my plans were completely awry. Luckily I'd finished this little cutie a couple of days ago.

This is Sweetie, one of Whimsy Stamps' new stamps from their Wee collection by Sylvia Zet. I just love Sylvia's sweet images and this one is no exception.



I coloured her with my distress ink markers on Langton hot press water colour paper.


Vintage Photo, Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass, Walnut Stain, Crushed Olive mixed with Bundled Sage, Hickory Smoke.

I you would like to see how I colour with Distress Ink markers, I've started a series of tutorials on my YouTube channel here. I gave her dress and wings a generous coating of Wink of Stella, but it's very hard to pick up on camera, you can just see some of it on the above close up shot.

I coloured her to match these lovely Maja Design papers from my stash.



I finished my cards with the following gorgeous embellishments from The Ribbon Girl.

Well that's all from me today, I do hope you liked my card, I have to admit that I'm really rather chuffed with it! :) xx

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Distress Ink Colouring Tutorial 3 - Colouring Skin

Hi everyone, I finally have my skin colouring tutorial up on YouTube. I'm sorry it's quite long as i cover techniques on both papers with 2 images, so grab a cuppa and settle in. Apologies in advance  for my rambling, I'm still very new to video tutorials and also sorry for any wheeziness you can hear on camera as my asthma has not been great in recent weeks. 

But anyway I hope you find it helpful. I've already filmed part 1 of my hair colouring tutorial (I decided to try and cut down on the size by breaking these down into Basic Hair, Finishing Techniques and Bright Colours &  Effects, so I should be able to share the first of these with you this weekend. 

Thanks for being so patient and I hope you enjoy it and it inspires you to have a go.  If you have any questions please leave them in the comments section and I'll do my best to answer and help.

If you prefer to watch on YouTube you can follow the link here


See you soon! :) xx


 

Monday 15 February 2016

Baker - Kitchen Gift Set for Noor! Design UK

Hi everyone! Well I'm back to work this week and playing catch up. Last week was lovely celebrating my birthday and spending time with my daughter, but I never got to spend much of that crafty time that I'd planned.

I was really quite late finishing this gift set, it should have been posted last Thursday, but I certainly did not make things easy for myself as this was quite a bit of work. I really did enjoy making it though.



As soon as I saw this MDF Apron from Dutch Doobadoo I knew I wanted to make something with it for my friend who is quite the keen baker. I had the idea to make a recipe box and I also wanted to make a little chalk board for her kitchen.

I covered the edges of the apron in gesso before decorating with paper. I cut a little pocket with an oval die and popped a few pieces from the Kraft Art Kitchenware inside. These are so cute, and perfect for any kitchen or cooking theme. The kraft gives them a lovely vintage look, which I accentuated further on my card by covering them with Crackle Glaze.


To make the chalk board I covered one of the apron's with some black gesso. You can use this like chalkboard paint, you just need to use a damp cloth to erase your chalking. I made a little gift bag to match my set also.

The image on the card is a digi from Saturated Canary called Baker, and I coloured her with my distress ink markers. I love the way she turned out.

Distress Ink Skin Colouring Tutorial - Update

Hi everyone, just a quick update on my tutorial. I have filmed it and it is currently uploading to YouTube (I have to do it overnight as my connection is very slow and it takes around 10 hours to upload). So I should be able to edit tomorrow and once the edits are saved I can then share it here and on YouTube for you, so I hope to have it with you for Wednesday, so sorry about the wait, I did hope to have it ready for the weekend, but sadly everything went wrong.

The good news is that I have already filmed most of the tutorial on hair now too so that will be ready for the coming weekend.

Thank you all for your patience :) xx

Thursday 11 February 2016

Whimsy Stamps February 2016 Release Day 2



Hi everyone and welcome to day 2 of Whimsy Stamps' February release.

Today I'm showcasing one of the new images drawn by the talented Mi Ran Jung for Whimsy's
Art by MiRan Collection.

This lovely is called Calantha, isn't she gorgeous?
I paired her with some sumptuous papers from Maja Design's Enjoying Outdoors collection.


I coloured her with my distress inks.
Colours used:
Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Shaded Lilac, Seedless Preserves, Picked Raspberry, Forest Moss.


I gave her a bit of a muted slightly vintage look. Her wings and scarf are liberally brushed with my new Wink of Stella brush pen and look so sparkly and shimmery in real life, but as usual it doesn't show up in the photos....shame. I chose a darker colour for the background to make it more of a twilight sky.


I kept the embellishments fairly simple, satin ribbon, pearl and diamante embellishment , cherry blossoms, and some self adhesive pearls.  I decorated the inside with papers and shapes to coordinate with the front.



Do you remember these sweet images drawn by Sylvia that I used at Christmas Time?


Jenny

and 

Little Helper

Both of these adorable images are now available in rubber from Whimsy Stamps as part of their Wee Stamps Collection.
How cool is that?

Well that's all from me today, don't forget to drop by the Whimsy blog to see the rest of the teams makes with the new stamps.

See you soon! :) xx

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Whimsy Stamps February 2016 Release Day 1




Hellooooo! I'm so excited today as it's the first day of our February release over at Whimsy Stamps and honestly I am so in love with this month's release. I mean I always am but this month has SO many great images.


Over the next 3 days we will be showcasing  17 *BRAND NEW* red rubber stamps,and 1*BRAND NEW* Shapeology crafting die! 

So what do I have to share with you today?

Well how about this super sweet image from Sylvia Zet as part of our Wee Stamps collection?

This is Frog Prince


The little frog is SUPER cute and it also comes with a fun sentiment that makes it perfect for a card for the man in your life as long as he has a sense of humour lol! 

I coloured him with my distress ink markers using the following colours:

Peeled Paint, Seedless Preserves, Fossilized Amber, Shaded Lilac, Picked Raspberry, Hickory Smoke, Bundled Sage, Forest Moss.



I made the background with this great Wavy Lines Mask Art stencil. I just used Peeled Paint and Dusty Concord Distress Ink pads and a blender to ink through the mask, I love the effect, I just masked out my little frog first and then daubed away! It was so much fun and the first time I've tried using a stencil, it won't be the last!
I cut out the image and sentiment using the the largest of the Dies-namics Postage stamp STAX and 
used some of the gorgeous Enjoying Outdoors paper from Maja Design to mat it and kept it simple with a little bit of Celery Green ruffle edged ribbon 

Well that's all from me today, but do pop along to the Whimsy Blog later and check out the rest of the DT makes, you won't be disappointed, you can also see the full release and have the chance to win them!

That's all from me today but I'l be back tomorrow with more Whimsy New Release goodness!

Bye for now :) xx

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Art by Mi Ran - Angel of Hearts

Hi everyone, this is a scheduled post as it's my birthday today, so obviously I'm not blogging lol.

We have new challenge over at Deep Ocean Challenge Blog and this time it's
'Hearts'
Just right for Valentine's week no?

I fell in love with this digi called Angel of Hearts from Art by Mi Ran a while ago and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to use it. It was an absolute joy to colour! I printed her out fairly large as I really wanted the focus of the card to be her, and coloured her with my Distress Ink markers.


This image took me around 2 hours to colour as I really took my time with her as I wanted her to be perfect and I'm really pleased with the result. I fussy cut her out and popped her up on some foam tape. I did have to lose one small heart that wasn't 'attached' to th eimage, I originally meant to cut that separately and add it back on the card, but it want missing somewhere, so I hope Mi Ran doesn't mind.
DI Colours used:
Vintage Photo, Antique Linen. Walnut Stain, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick, 


I knew I wanted my card to echo the image, with lots of hearts, so I decided to use 2 sets of nesties dies that I've owned for a few years now, hearts and scalloped hearts. I cut the scalloped hearts from some plain coloured card stock in a few different shades to match my chosen design paper.
I used an old 6 x 6 Whimsy paper pack Romance from my drawer, it's been in there a long while, I'm a bit of a paper hoarder lol. I wanted to use as many of the designs as I could, so the different size hearts were great for that. 

To round off the design I used the Scripted Love Word Die from Whimsy Stamps. I cut this out 3 times in grey card stock, and glued them one on top of the other so that it resembled chipboard in thickness, covered it in glitter and placed it in the lower corner of my card.


I kept embellishment to a minimum as the card was already quite 'busy', so no lace, ribbon or flowers today, just a few enamel dots and some Tim Holtz Distress Glitter Dust in Vintage Platinum (love that colour!) on the wings and die cut word. As usual the sparkle doesn't show up well on camera, but I can tell you it looks delicious in the flesh.


I do hope you can join us, there is a lovely prize to be won from our sponsor, and don't forget to check out the stunning makes from the rest of the team.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations - Anything Goes/Twist of Valentine Design Team Favourite
Craft Your Passion - #298 Anything Goes
Crafty Cardmakers - Love, Love, Love Top 5
Dream Valley Challenges - Valentine's Day
Get Creative Challenges - Must Include Hearts
Where the Heart is - Love
Live & Love Crafts - Love is in the Air

I'll be back tomorrow with the first of my projects for Whimsy's February release, bye for now! :) xx