All That Glitters....

Another creation from The Frosted Winter collection today but I tried to use something other than Octavia this time around to show you its versatility. The digi is coloured once again with my prisma pencils. I defo find this medium works for me.

A Closer View

Thanks so much for stopping by. Feel free to leave me some bloggy love.

Believe....

For my Octavia sample today I altered a cheap wall hanging. It's not something I do very often but thoroughly enjoyed it. I've incorporated, colouring with markers & pencils, flower shaping. There's even some sewing if you look closely enough!

Close Up:

If you haven't got your collection yet you can download it instantly here.

Thanks for stopping by

The Ice Queen Cometh....

Of course the star of the show once again is Octavia she's just gorgeous and I just love to colour her in with my pencils. Although I may try a little something different for my next make.....

But for today here she is in all her glory.

Close up:

l know this collection is very dramatic so how about going black for Christmas? The majority of everything used is from The Octavia Frosted Winter Collection. I opted for printing the stripey backing paper on printable canvas paper. I quite like the softer appearance, a bit of silver guilding wax on the embossed card stock & a bit of silky ribbon. I think I rather like it, what do you think?

Octavia Frosted Winter Launch

Wow... wow... wow are you lot in for a treat? The fabulously talented Nikky Hall has come up with a real humdinger this time! Octavia is all ready for winter/Christmas. You can get your collection by clicking here. It's simply gorgeous and for my first make I opted for the mauve papers. I coloured the digi with my prisma pencils. There are some lovely banners & tags within this collection. So I took the purple ribbon one into my graphics programme and added the sentiment. The embossed card is hilighted with metallic pan pastels to make it pop and call me a cheap skate but the glittery snowflakes were from some 'posh' crackers I had last Christmas. Waste not want not!

A Close Up:

Thanks for stopping by please feel free to leave me a comment. I <3 to read them.

Use Something New

It's brand new challenge time over at Polkadoodles and the design team were challenged to use something new so I decided to opt for the Picnix 3 Nordic Christmas collection. Almost everything on this card is from the collection. I just adore shaping & layering up the flowers. 

 Close up:

Challenges Entered:

http://www.trimmiescraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/challenge-324-13th-ofaugust-christmas.html

craftingwithanattitude.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/challenge-6.html

littlemissmuffetchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/challenge-118-anything-goes.html

Items Used:

 

Nordic Christmas

Snow in August

I'm currently a fraction more organised than last year regarding making my Christmas cards. I'm not sure how long it will last but with about 30 odd to make I need to get them underway.

So here are two I made using Crafters Companion Softly Falling Embossing Folder as my inspiration. The first one is a swalk digi image coloured up initially with my Graph'it markers but I couldn't get the hair right so switched to me prisma pencils and things started to improve. I'm really pleased with the final result.

A Close Up:

My second card ( yes I know I was in a red mood!) it involved a bit of paper pricking. It never goes 100% straight for me but the effect is nice, the rest of the card is put together using Sue Wilson Snowflake Corner and Sue Wilson Peeking Snowflake dies

A Close Up:

Challenges Entered:

http://sweetstampsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/challenge-234-anything-goes.html

Happy Birthday Dear Karen.....

Happy Birthday to you....... today is my dear friend Karen's birthday it makes a change to not have to stick the number '50' on a card anywhere. Although she's catching me up fast. Whilst I was in the mood for making a card with more than one fold. I decided to do a central stepper for Karen.

The image is a Toread stamp by Crafters Companion coloured with my pencils. The backing papers are from the accompanying CD. I'm not sure if either are still available as whilst trying to link up to my blog. I couldn't find any on the CC website. I've just added a few homemade flowers and a couple of die cuts to complete the card.

More Than One Fold

It's been a while since I made a side stepper card you can find the instructions here. It's mid challenge inspiration time over at Polkadoodles Challenge Blog so get your thinking heads on. I used papers, pre coloured digi and embellishments all from Work & Play 11.

Side angle. You can see from the photo below that I printed a contrasting paper on either side of the base card.

Hopefully my brother won't check my blog out as this is his birthday card all ready for the end of next month!

Challenges Entered:

http://cceestampers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/ccee1532-national-golf-month.html

http://craftingwithanattitude.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/challenge-6.html

http://sassystudiodesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/i-want-to-dtbst-293.html

Items Used:

Work & Play 11: CD

Basic Colouring Tutorial

Hi guys. Thanks for stopping by, this post is aimed at those of you who keep saying 'I can't colour' or 'My colouring looks like a child has done it' yes you know who you are! I'm hoping to launch a little experiment at the same time as this blog post and that is to hand my pencils and a printed digi to my neighbour who is going to try and follow this VERY photo heavy tutorial.

All you need is the essential set of Spectrum Noir pencils and a digi stamp. The pencils are not my first choice of medium but they are a good entry level set that can be picked up for around £15. I daren't think of the money I've spent on various makes of pencils/pens over the years. You never know, just by reading on you may save a few quid!

Okay are you ready? It is easy honestly and if at first you don't succeed...... try, try again. What's the worst that can happen? 

Skin: It's just a case of layering up adding shade and going over the darker shade with the colour shown. I'm hoping the photos speak for themselves. I mean look you can't even see the base colour on this first picture.

Hair: This image is ideal as there's not a huge amount of hair to colour. Remember, all over with the lightest colour, shade with the darkest around hat, back & tips blend out with mid tone and then back over with the lightest!

Jeans: Try to remember to lay the first colour down quite lightly then use the lines & folds on the digi as a guide to where the shading should be.

Coat: The base layer is so light you can hardly see it but by the time its finished you should find you have a variety of tones.

Hat & Scarf: I'm hoping the photos are quite self explanatory here.

 Snowballs & Fur: the secret here is a layer of white pencils and dotting the blues before blending out with the white at the end. Again use the shading on the digi itself as a guide.

 Stripes on scarf: for narrower areas just make sure you have a nice sharp pencil!

Boots: Once again a very light first layer then blend out the darkest colour with the mid tone and then back over with the first colour. Seriously it's not rocket science guys.

I'd love to hear how you get on. Please feel free to leave me a comment but remember be gentle with me, I'm no expert but I do believe that if I can do it, anyone can.

Good Luck!