Happy Heart Day Series | Beary Lovable ft. Gerda Steiner "Warm Fuzzies"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today's card fits in two different series', but in the interest of not having a title as long as the blog itself, I'll keep it to my Happy Heart Day Series today; though, as you can see it would also fit in the Coloured on Kraft Series.

Anyone who watches card making videos on YouTube has had to have seen stamps by Gerda Steiner Designs. This is the first time that I am trying them out and I have to say that I'm very much impressed. They have a bunch of sets and I'm very excited to get my hands on more of them.

To begin, I stamped this bear from Gerda Steiner's "Warm Fuzzies" with VersaMark ink on 65lb Kraft paper by Recollections, then coloured him with Prismacolor Premier pencils.

I used an inside out stitched rectangle to cut him from the centre of the paper. I then used an open heart stamp randomly about the outer frame and then coloured them with pencils as well. I adhered the frame to the front of a standard A2 sized card base and added the little bear piece back inside.

To cover the cut edge, but preserve the stitching, I laid down a line of liquid adhesive and sprinkled red glitter over it.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Coloured on Kraft Series | Hippo Birthday ft. MFT "Happy Hippos"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

As crazy as it sounds, I think the Holidays have me a little Lawn Fawn'd out. It wasn't until I was done the whole series that I realized 95% of the cards were based on Lawn Fawn. Whoops. It wasn't intentional. I just didn't get my hands on the Christmas stuff I wanted from other companies in time. (foreshadowing?)

Anyway, today I'm taking a little break from Lawn Fawn, don't get me wrong I still love them, but I just need to take a step back and take a different perspective. Today I have a card featuring MFT's "Happy Hippos" coloured on kraft with coloured pencils.

To begin, I cut down a piece of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections and stamped the hippo, balloons and hat from the "Happy Hippos" set with VersaMark ink. I chose to use embossing ink because it doesn't leave harsh stamping lines, and if you have followed this particular series for any length of time, you know just how much I love the no line colouring look.

I masked off the images and used my cloud stencil and soft blue pigment ink by CTMH to create the cloudy background. I had originally thought to make the clouds whiter, but that would have taken away from the panel being kraft - I mean, I would know and you would know, but would the rest of the world understand? So I left it as it was and I'm pretty happy that I didn't shake things up.

I started colouring the balloons using the Black Widow/Scorpion wax based coloured pencils (review coming) and was pretty happy with how they turned out. They lay down a little differently than other wax brands I have - but I'll get into that in the coming review.

For the Hippo, I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils - which are an oil based pencil and I'll have a review of those coming up in the new year as well. I used the warm grays to colour the hippo completely.

I can hear you now -- "what?? different brands of pencils? wax and oil? in the same piece???" Oh I know, not typically something I do. But here's the thing. Out of the 48 Widow/Scorpion pencils - there is one gray. One. And honestly, it isn't even really a good one - but again, I'll get more into that in the review. I promise. If I remember, I'll back link to this post so we can all be righteously indignant together.

To finish off, I mounted the kraft panel to the front of my A2 sized card base and then stamped the greeting from the same set using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think. I could use some cheering today, so even a hello would be great!

Coloured on Kraft | Vintage Belated Birthday ft. Lawn Fawn "Gleeful Gardens"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I have another card for the Coloured on Kraft series. I'm using new pencils today and while I haven't done a review of these yet, there is definitely one coming soon.

The pencils I'm using today are the Black Widow and Scorpion sets, at first I was a little put off as they aren't as vibrant on the kraft as the Prismacolor Premier pencils that I typically use, but as I worked through this piece, I found that I really liked the "vintage" look that they gave.

To begin, I cut down a panel of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections and masked off the bottom. I then stamped the images and greeting from Lawn Fawn's "Gleeful Gardens" using CTMH Cashmere ink.

I coloured the images with the Black Widow and Scorpion Pencils. I also used them to create my own grass to ground the scene and the dirt to fill in the bottom.

I tied a piece of soft blue baker's twine around the top below the greeting, and adhered my panel to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Coloured on Kraft Series | Floral Thoughts of You ft. Stampin' Up "Birthday Blooms"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I want to share a floral thinking of you card, coloured on kraft cardstock with Prismacolor Premier Coloured Pencils. The more I work with these pencils the more I absolutely love them. I like to look back through my work and see how far my colouring has progressed. As with any other medium the key is practice, practice, practice.

This image from Stampin' Up is perfect for practicing in any medium, and if you don't have it, I highly recommend getting one, or one like it.

To begin, I stamped the floral image from Stampin' Up "Birthday Blooms" and the greeting with VersaMark ink on 65lb kraft cardstock. I chose this particular ink because it doesn't have the harsh lines that stamping in black has, and it is easy to cover up with pencil; creating this beautiful "no-line" look.

I then coloured the blooms with only three shades! All the petals are coloured with PC1032 Pumpkin Orange, PC1002 Yellow Orange and PC915 Lemon Yellow. I start with my medium shade in the areas where I know I want the shadows to be the darkest. I then go to my lightest shade for the for the rest of the petal with an incredibly light hand, finally I add in my darkest shade to deepen those shadows and start to bring out the depth of the flower.

I work back and forth, doing one petal at a time from start to finish until it looks just how I want it to. Each of these petals has 8-10 layers of colour so it is very important that you use a very light hand, as Prismacolor pencils are waxed based there will come a point where you just can't add any more layers because of the waxy build-up. So it will take a while, but with the layers you can get almost any shade between your darkest and lightest pencils.

For the stamen in the centre of the flower I used PC923 and highlighted with the Lemon Yellow.

All of the leaves are coloured with PC988 Marine Green, PC1096 Kelly Green and then PC1089 Pale Sage, working the same as the blossoms, one leaf at a time until it looks just right. Because many of the leaves have texture from the veins, I ignore those until I'm adding the final details, then I gently go over them with the medium and then the darkest shade of green.

I have found that I get the best results from keeping my tip as sharp as possible all the time. This typically means a lot of sharpening, so I use the T'GAAL Multi-Sharpener on setting one to keep a low but sharp point. I can avoid losing a lot of pencil material, because let's face it - coloured pencils aren't cheap.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. If you have any questions or just want to let me know what you think, please drop me a line in the comments section below. I love to hear from you!