Birthdays are no respecters of how you're feeling and annoyingly come along even when you have a horrible flu-y cold. And so it was I had to create a masculine card for my neighbour all while reaching for the tissues and breaking into a sweat. Ideal conditions to try something I haven't done before 🙄… Continue reading Whisky glass
The start of July brings the twins' birthdays, meaning it was time to come up with another idea for a cleverly linked pair of cards. Once again, my other half gave me a starting idea: something as simple as “an image that flows from one card to the other”. And that sent me off to… Continue reading Twins – night and day
I grew up not far from Waddington in Lincolnshire so we regularly had the distinctively shaped Vulcan bombers flying overhead. Our neighbour is a big fan of Vulcans so I was happy to create this card for her birthday. I do love working with stamps and digi stamps, but there is something rather satisfying about… Continue reading Vulcan bomber
This is a simple way to create a patterned sheet that can be used as a background panel or for die-cutting sentiments or flowers or butterflies or whatever takes your fancy... All you need is some kitchen roll, a water spritzer and one or more pigment powders (Brusho, Ken Oliver Colour Burst, PaperArtsy Infusions etc),… Continue reading Technique: Kitchen roll and Brusho
These ducks are quite ridiculous. But such fun to colour, and those big eyes just begged to have a layer of glossy accents over them. There are only a few feathers on the digi stamp, but I added some extra texture to the body by mimicking those shapes using a slightly darker Copic colour than… Continue reading Quackers
I don’t care if the digi stamp is called “hello friend turtle”, it has feet not flippers so it must be land-dwelling, therefore it’s a tortoise (checks… okay, technically all tortoises are turtles but still…). Now I’ve got that out of my system, on to the card 🙂 It’s been a while since I took… Continue reading Hello tortoise!
This was another one of those cards where the real challenge was coming up with a layout that did justice to the colouring. The flower blocks strip was created during one of the Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenges, way back in March 2015, and had been sitting in my PHD (projects half done) box… Continue reading Flower blocks
It’s always fun to see different styles of images and these forest animals are unlike any others I’ve seen. I kept the colouring simple, adding some basic texturing to the fur and giving them a grassy patch to sit on. I always find it hard to create a layout for coloured pieces like this. After… Continue reading Wolf, fox and bear
This blog post is a little bit different from my usual card write-ups. Towards the end of last year Create A Smile put out a call for card tutorials for a winter mini-magazine they were planning. I made a card, wrote it up and sent it in and then, I guess, life happened and the… Continue reading Penguins tag
I was surprised how well these wax oil pastels worked. I thought I was pushing it — trying them on an image with quite small petals and leaves — and I didn’t expect to be able to get anywhere near the amount of blending I did. It’s another one of those things where you think… Continue reading Crayon flowers on black
It’s Father’s Day today, so I get to make a card for my other half’s dad (only two months after his birthday. In keeping with the developing theme of making South Wales landscapes for him, this is a view of the beach by Port Talbot (technically there should be some buildings on the grass, but… Continue reading Aberavon Sands
It was the middle of a colouring challenge last summer and the call went out to melonise all the things: pick an image and colour it like a watermelon. I could have chosen something simple like a cute little round mouse, but no, I couldn’t take the easy option, I had to pick the wraith… Continue reading Melonised wraith
Cake!!!!! I was tempted to colour rainbow layers but decided to make it into a massive chocolate cake instead. On the digi stamp, the banner says “live it up”, but I wanted a more traditional “happy birthday” so I wrote it in by hand; I could probably have found a stamp that would fit in… Continue reading Layer cake
This fairy is a really good image for practising hair and this was coloured when I was just starting to get a handle on how to create highlights. I ought to try it again and see how it turns out with another few months of Copic practise under my belt. The thing that I really… Continue reading Purple fairy
I love my Copics, but I also love trying new things and playing with different styles and techniques. And well… anything that gives me an excuse to go shopping for more stash! At the end of last year I decided to leap waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone and try some dimensional mixed media. I… Continue reading Winter box
Crafty Rat 