What's Cooking?

I am basing my card today on two fantastic photo inspiration challenges. The first is by "The Play Date Cafe"...and the one below "Quixotic ". I thought that they were so similar they would work well in a combination. I love these colors and thought that it would be a breeze. But I actually sat for some time scratching my head.
My trouble was that I had too many coordinating papers and couldn't figure out which ones to use....I ended up using only one patterened paper sheet and the rest solid cardstock.

So here is my take on the photo inspiration:

I am using a BellesNWhistles stamp, colored with Prismacolors and "goo gone". The paper are K&Co and Coredinations. A close up below:

I would like to enter it in the following challenges:

The Play Date Cafe (stink! It turns out I was too late for this one....)

Quixotic Challenges

BellesNWhistles sketch

Love Cats

This is my last post for today everyone. I promise not to bug you anymore with thoughts of crayons and potions. lol

I guess in looking at this card you can guess what song has been in my head all day...

"thank you for loving me" by Bon Jovi. Gotta love it. :-)

Aren't these love cats great?

They're by Penny Black and I've used distress inks for coloring them.

All the paper is from my stash. The top banner is simply a strip of paper hand cut/scalloped and paper pierced.

The frame on the image and sentiments is made using adhesive cork. I buy it by the big rolls in the posterboard area of a large craft store. It's cheaper than individual sheets. Much cheaper.

But they're not going to tell you that...

So here is a closeup of the cats..

And the ribbon detail.. Ive used a heart shaped brad for the thank you note. I never do hearts but it's kinda cute.

And the "loving you" sentiment. I printed these on the computer. yay! My ink arrived last night! Back in business!

This card qualifies for the following challenges:

PB Sat sketch

All Sorts Heart

Critter Challenge Thank You

Hidden Treasure Orange/ turquoise

OCC Lets get corky

Papertake Weekly In the Garden


Thanks for looking everybody!

Crayon Tutorial Part 3

So I have gone in and added more color to her already blended hair and am happy with it
now:-)




So I will move on to her posy etc. I am using the same greens I used in her jacket and have laid down the lightest first. The sun is going to shine across the celophene bag so I am leaving the front area white and carefully blending the color from the side areas into it.

Now I add the darker color and blend....

and deepen my shadows with a bit more dark green and a touch of sepia. My flowers I want to be fresh and light so I am using very little color. I ahve just picked up my pink crayon that I used for her cheeks (cotton candy) and given each flower a scribble of color. Then I go in with my tortilion and GG and blend away. See below:

I add a blue crayon outline to the colored image and blend that as well.

I am done!! I hope you had fun. It's nice to know what can be done with everyday supplies that most everyone has at hand. Happy coloring! :-)

Crayon Tutorial Part 2

I won't have as much explaining to do in this part because the technique remains the same.

I have three crayons: dandelion, goldenrod and sepia.



I will begin coloring in the skirt with my lightest shade of yellow. But not everything; remember that the light is also hitting the skirt so I will leave parts of it white . I am goingto concentrate on the folds of the skirt and lay down more color there.



And now add the darker yellow and a bit of sepia into the shadow areas and blend. I could go in and make the shadows darker. There would be no harm in that but this time I am going to leave it as is .See result below:

Now for the fun part! The hair. Hair is always fun because everyone's hair is different and is made up a blend of several colors. I am only going to use two though: chestnut and raw sienna.

I am starting with the lighter and paying careful attention to where the sun would be coming from. As it's coming from over her right shoulder it would not only cast a ray across her clothes but also shine across the top of her head. The darkest area would be on her left side and behind her ears. See example below:

Now I go in with the darker color and just add some depth. See below:

I am not done yet. I will blend with my tortillion and GG.

So the colors are blended but i'm still not quite happy. See, GG is made to clean up crayons an dchewing gum so in it's very makeup it is designed to "remove" and this also applies to its blending capapbilities. It blends but also lightens a bit. I want more depth.

So in part 3 I will complete her hair by going back in and adding more color down in the shadows and also finish the picture by coloring in her posy and background.

Crayon Tutorial Part 1

Hi!
I've been asked to explain step by step how I use normal kid's crayons to color in a stamped image in a "grown up" way. :-). It's really much the same technique as normal colored pencils. Below you will see the tool box:



Although there are 120 colors in this crayon box I am only using about 10 crayons to color in this image by Lili Of The Valley. I am going to be using "goo gone" as my blending solvent, but you could use baby oil instead with good success. I have cut a few squares of felt and put them in a sealable container with some goo gone to wet the felt. I will use this to dip my paper tortillions in when blending. (It's important to wipe your tortillion each time you switch colors on some scrap paper. Or you can use seperate tortillions for each color. I use one and clean it. )

For paper I am using a smooth grain white paper cardstock 110 lb weight.

*just a note: 'goo gone' is a cleaning product used to get chewing gum and crayons and other stickiness off things. You find it in the cleaning product aisle of a supermarket or drug store.

To begin!

I have used three colors to color in her face: peach, tan and cotton candy. I won't use her face as part of my tutorial as the colors are so light you won't get the full impact. But suffice it to say that I layed down a layer of the lightest color first. Peach. And used the tan for my shadows. I then blended with my 'googone' tortillion and added a bit more color. Have a look and you'll get the idea.

Okay!

So now we'll start on her jacket and shoes. I am doing them in green so it should show up just fine. I will be using three colors: asparagus, olive green and sepia.

Step 1:

Use your lightest color first. But don't color everything. Remeber that when light hits an object it renders it almost colorless. So we're going to leave some areas white to represent sunshine. In this image I am imagining that the sun is coming over her right shoulder. So it will cast it's ray almost diagonally across her clothing. So I am coloring the areas that the sun is not touching fully.

Get the idea? Now I will go in and grab my darker crayon and darken the shadow areas around the crook of her arm and where her jacket is pulling at the buttons. See below:

Now I am going to add a bit of sepia into the shadows over the green. Why sepia? Well this makes the colors more natural and also adds depth .(I do this with my pencil work as well) So hereI am using my blending tortillion with GG to blend all the colors together. I will next go in again with my crayons and added a bit more color where I think it might need it.

Have a look:

It's look ing good isn't it? I am now finished with the jacket and shoes.

In part2 we'll move on to her skirt and hair.

Crayola Is Better

Well, I hate to be a snob but I have to say that Crayola is better than the dollar store crayons.:-) And it's not just the color range. You don't need many colors. But after my experimenting with generic crayons this morning I had to go out and buy Crayolas this afternoon and compare the results . This is what I found:
Crayolas are less waxy and so really blend and layer well. Who knew it?

Here I used "Goo Gone"and blending tortillions to blend my colors. Here is a close up of the girl with posy:

Not bad is it? And here is the boy with letter boat:

You know, I think if you got up really close you might be able to tell they're crayons but it's not at all obvious so its a good product to practice on. The tips are obviously not as pointy as a pencil but you can work with it and get some pretty good results.

NOTE: the faces were done with copics. I'm sure crayons would work but I just happened to have images already stamped out (and faces already colored) that I grabbed to practice on.
I would like to see what kind of flesh tones can be achieved with crayons. I will definately be practicing!

Playing With Crayons

Maybe it's the starving artist in me...(I was a little hungry when I went to bed last night..lol) but I woke up this morning with this crazy idea to color something with crayons...

I thought for sure my daughter would have some decent 64 pack of crayola crayons (you know the kind, with the fancy dancy sharpener in the back?) but all I found was this cheap 24 pack of dollar store crayons....was I really that cheap?... what kind of mother am I? I console myself with the fact that Tweety was never into coloring. But what kind of kid would be with a lousy 24 pack of dollar store crayons? Ok can someone please turn the guilt button off? I'm trying to tell a story! ..anyway this is what I found so this is what i had to play with.

I am using blending tortilions, a mini plastic container with a few squares of felt in the bottom soaked with baby oil, crayons and a LOTV image.

Just a close up of the felt squares. You see that they're not swimming in oil but they are evenly dampened.

Here we have the finished image...

And a close up of it so you can see all the imperfections....

Not bad!

The most difficult thing working with crayons is that they are very waxy. So when you layer colors you run the risk of peeling off the last layer you put down. This happened to me but I kept reapplying. Crayons also flake a bit so any stray bits have a way of getting stuck on the paper. Sometimes you can scrape these up with something sharp like a paper piercer or xacto knife. Other times you have to ignore it. :-)

We had a friend in London who was an amazing artist (probably still is) and he stunned me one time by showing us a "painting" he did solely with childrens crayons. It was a Monet replica and was jawdropping amazing. I guess, since then I have set that as a challenge in front of me. He always said that it wasn't so much the product as the technique. That you could use just about anything to create really good art.

I didn't believe him.

But this little project has inspired me enough to buy that big pack of crayolas. I am told they come in 120 colors now .

UPDATE:

Yes, I had to do it. I went to the drug store and picked up a 120 pack of Crayola Crayons! :-) I am happy to report that these work even better than the generic in that they are less waxy and so let you put down more color layers without peeling up the layer underneath. I will try to use my new practice crayola image in my next card so you can see the possibilities.

btw, crayons are not as cheap as they used to be.

It cost me $10.99 for that 120 pack. *gasp* splutter* But then if you think how expensive professional oil crayons/pencils etc are then its a steal. If any of you decide to raid your kids crayon boxes and try the technique I would love to see how what you come up with! (oh, this time I used a product called Goo Gone as my solvent. Works pretty good but does squeak on the paper which is a bit annoying.

A Happy Everything

In this card I am combining a few challenges. In one I am to build a card around my favorite things. So of course I had to put a couple of buttons on here (stacked on top of two silk flowers)as well as my other favorite things, ducks! :-)
....and then there's these little adhesive pearls, I really love them too...and stitching, gotta have stitching! lol
Here are my supplies:

DPs: assorted from my stash
Image: Cheryl Agler digi
Colors: prismacolors and blending pen
Stitching: machine done
Ribbon: Offray
Pearls: Recollections
Sentiment: Hero Arts

Here is a close up of the image....

And the button flower..

The sentiment...

The stitching and pearls....

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Totally Gorjuss> water, water

Stamp Something> One DP, One Ribbon, One Image

Pile It On> Favorite things

Thats it for today! Thanks for coming by for a look. :-)

You Make Me Smile

I don't know why but when I see a cat image I immediately reach for the yellow/orange pencils. Which is strange cos in all my 'cat ownership' years the ginger tabbies have always been the brattiest. lol Like mischevious little boys they wear their hearts on their sleeve and you always seem to know what they're thinking. Take my current "Gingerboy"as an example. He can't look at my ducklings without licking his lips...its automatic. He knows he can't touch them but he fantasizes about it anyway.

I digress. Let's get to the card.

For supplies I used:

DPs scraps from my stash
image digi by Meljen Designs
colors primacolor pencils and blending pen
ribbon scrap from my stash
gems Recollections
sentiment Hero Arts
circles etc nestabilities
stitching machine done


Here is a closeup of the image. I just love the cats expression. "Good grief, she's got me" lol


And the sentiment....

the patchwork circles. I love these.....

And the button. :-) I am happy to say no complications today with my button. :-) And how cool is it that I happened to have a round button with a square inset and then a small square button to fit inside? I guess that's a sign of having too many buttons!

I would like to enter this card in two challenges:

Meljen's Challenge circles galore

Priscillastyles Midnight Madness sketch

Thanks for having a peek and leaving a peep on my blog. :-)

Summer Love

I started coloring this image last night and finished up this morning. Its a cute digi by Meljen's designs . I colored it in with Prismacolors and a blending pen. Here is a closeup...

And the sentiment/button area.... (you must parden the shape of that button. Once I glued everything down it struck me that that pink button looked decidedly "nipple-like". I was like, oh dear, maybe I should remove it...wasn't exactly the look I was going for, you know? but I left it...maybe I shouldn't have said anything...lol )

Here is a list of my supplies:

DPs > assorted from my stash

Image> Meljen's

Buttons > from stash

Paper flower > Recollections

Heart >cut out of a sheet of designer paper
Ribbon> from stash

Colors> prismacolors

Gems> Recollections

Stitching> machine done with full size Singer

I would like to enter it into the following challenges:

Little Red Wagon: nestabilities

Truly Scrumptious: sketch

Cute Card Thursday: schools out

Have a good day all!

Isn't Marriage Great?

I totally fell in love with this digi by Bugaboo. Its fits my demented sense of humor! LOL I can see many uses for this digi. Look out everybody!

Here is a close up of the loving couple... Aren't they so shweeeet? Not!

And the sentiment.....

For supplies I used the following:

DPs: DCWV paper pack "Linen Closet"
Image: Bugaboo
Color: Prismacolor pencils
Pearls: Recollections
Ribbon: Offray

Copics: E00 E11 (for skin)


I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Simon Says (photo inspiration)
Pixie Cottage (sketch)
Bugaboo (love is in the air)

Hey! Did you notice how my post matches my blog? Cool, huh?

Good Night!

Just A Note

Ok, so this card is proof that if you agonize over something long enough it works out. Sometimes. Here are my supplies:

DPs : assorted from my stash
Image: Sassy Cheryl
Colors: Prismacolor pencils and blending pen
Ribbon: Assorted
Buttons: Assorted from stash
Sentiment: stamp by TPC (I borrowed from a friend as my printer ran out of ink..)
Gems: Recollections

Here is a close up of the image...



And the flowers and my favorite stacked buttons...(you know buttons make everything better. Buttons and chocolate)




And here is the other flower with button threaded through with a green wire.
Ok. Now can we just pretend I was going for the whimsical ,funky, slightly irregular look with that wire? Thanks! :-)



This card fits three challenges:

Sassy Cheryl's (sketch)
Color Throwdown (colors green, pink, red and blue)
Penny's Papercraft (7 of something- I am using seven gems for my seven "notes" coming out of the bagpipe)

Thanks for looking and have a great day!