Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Hoot No Evil!

Here is one of the images I've coloured from the Knitty Kitty Digi's premier collection. I'm enjoying recolouring these with a mix of copics and polychromos. The first time round I did them all with watercolours.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Hoot No Evil! - Available for download on etsy.

Brief foray into Craftsuprint land.

I was after some motorbike themed items to make cards for my BIL and decided to see what Craftsuprint had to offer. I've seen it advertised many times, I've walked past Crafty Bob at the NEC and I've never, until now, really given it a decent explore.

So it's now a massive site ( I think I popped to look at it when it first started and it was tiny!) and there are loads of downloadable offerings on every possible subject. I admit a fairly large amount (90 percent?) are not my style, but there is some very professional and interesting stuff on there. I was also surprised to find some SVG/cutting files and lots of card "kits" for more complicated designs.

I made two cards with my first download. ( One of the main downers in my experience was having to spend a minimum of £5 when the two files I wanted only cost £1.60)

This shaped card is by Sarah Lake and you can download it here. It was 80p. If you print it directly onto one piece of A4 cardstock it makes a quite small card that fits in a 6 inch square envelope. I printed it onto white cardstock and decoupaged it by printing the right hand side twice more and selecting my decoupage layers. Afterwards I  used glossy accents and yellow stickles to add some bling. I used the computer to print out the greeting and 3d foamed it onto the bottom of  the card. I printed out a small inner to provide somewhere obvious to sign.

And this is "You Rock on a Motorbike" by Heather Howes and is downloadable here. (also 80p) I have to admit it made me chuckle and I couldn't resist it! Printed out onto one A4 sheet of card and decoupaged using the layout suggested. Replace greeting circles on the download with the number 40 for my BIL's birthday. Added two different stickles to his crest and some metallic bling to his leather jacket. I also modified the image to make a themed insert for the card too, the only thing that was missing!

Neither cards were super inspirational but I was impressed by craftsuprint and what it had to offer. I will definitely use the site again and pop to have a look what there is next time someone makes an odd request!

Might have to revisit this subject if I start to upload some content. Shall report back!

Kanban Beside The Sea Collection

A very kind friend  ( Thanks Grace! :)) liberated part of her stash for me and it was all from a lovely collection by Kanban called "Beside the Sea". Although I actually had it on the pretext of putting it towards my very-long-running-altered-art-seaside-project I thought it would be nice to make a commissioned card for a long term customer who wanted something seascape-ish!

I used to really love Kanban things when I first started crafting and could regularly pick up bargains from the QVC shop in Shrewsbury. It's all such lovely quality, and although sometimes people's foiling can be rather brash and brassy, Kanban foiling is really nice!

I'm not sure what this card fold is called, but the main card is 22.5 cm x 15 cm with a valley fold at 7.5 cm. The smaller card inside (10cm x 10cm), faces the wrong way round and you glue it in the centre of the back piece. Hope that is explained well enough? I normally put the message inside the smaller centre card, and a place to write your own greeting on the inside of the front small flap, or if there is room, on the left hand side of the card hidden by the 7.5 cm by 15cm flap. There are images inside the flap on this card too.

If you want a diagram of how this card works let me know and I will gladly draw one.

Talking of handy diagrams... I found this on pinterest the other day... it's a set of miniature  instructions for how an easel card works! I normally draw one to include with my card but this would be super handy. Going to print it and cut one out every time I need one. Easel cards are not common sense, even very bright people have been baffled by them....;)

Autumnal Anniversary

Taking Inspiration from the Challenge on Our Crafty Corner this week and made a couple of anniversary cards. Will have to post the other one when the event has passed but think I can get away with showing this one straight away!

So using an autumnal palette - Distress Inks - Squeezed Lemon, Ripe Persimmon and Spiced Marmalade, I washed over a white embossed doily pattern, stamped directly onto the cardstock. I also coloured heat embossed bunting ( some with initials) to add to the top corner. And then coloured in the owls with copics to match the colour scheme.

The owls are Bobunny Love Birds (SLB887) and I added them a branch to sit on.
The banners are all from a set of stamps called "Happy Day Clear Stamps" that were recently free on one of the craft mags.(Which one?? I can't remember...)
The Doily stamp is from the Papermania Urban Stamps collection.
The Alphabet Set I used for the letters is from Studio G, set VS4191

Card entered into : http://our-crafty-corner.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/challenge-1.html

New Sushi Cats

Trying hard to get some new cards featuring my digi images made! I have managed to get in some colouring time but still lots to go :) I've previously sold my images as small watercolours in frames, so it's all new to use them in my cards. Here are the Sushi Cats :) I used my copics, polychromo pencils and a white pen for this.

Arty Impressions Cat Lady Stamps

I love this stamp set! It's actually a full set of stamps to make a triple fold card, featuring a "cat lady" and all her cats. It's the only Arty Impressions set I have and I am impressed with the attention to detail and quality of the stamps.

You could stamp them directly onto the cardstock but as I wanted to colour them with Copics ( which bleeds through to the other side) I decided to stamp them onto a nice smooth paper and then cut them out. Is that sort of cheating? :)

I've started to collect some prefered colour sets for colouring in various types of cats ( Colours of cats??) and it's handy when colouring my own digi images too. So my current Ginger Tom palette is -
Stripes - YR31, YR23, Y38, E33 and shadows in W1. Eyes in any yellow or green handy, and nose in whatever flesh/pink is to hand :)

I've decided finding other peoples cat stamps that I enjoy using is excellent research for my own enterprise. I quite like having very few details when I'm colouring the cats, but without a bit of guidance where paws or tails might be, it definitely slowed the colouring mojo! I don't like when the stripes are pre-drawn though. Do you?

 Thoroughly enjoyed the process and love the card that resulted (passing it to a friend for her birthday, not selling this one) and it's made me think how I might make some cat "scenes" to stamp in layers of my own.

Additional Birthday Greetings by Hero Arts, "Birthday Messages" CL139


Entered into Crafty Addicts Challenge 2, Spots or Stripes/Anything Goes Am hoping all these stripey and spotty cats will fit the criteria :)

Balloon Dog!

Makes a change from all these cats, finally a dog themed card!  Made a set of these and they were really fun to make. I printed out the text and balloon placement directly onto kraft cardstock. I then printed out the balloon shape on coloured papers and cut them out. The little dog is an old stamp from Woodware, the set is called "A Dog's Life" (FRCL032) and I've got a lot of use out of it already. Really enjoyed colouring him in with polychromo pencils directly onto the kraft card, my top tip would be to use lots of white! I mounted my 14x14cm topper onto a 15x15cm kraft blank just to add a bit of a modern twist :) I think it works great as a man's card but equally well as a card for a female friend. I added him some collar bling regardless of the recipient ;)

Summer Holiday - Dr Digi House of Stamps

Made a card for my FIL using this great image from Dr Digi. They have a really good selection of images suitable for slightly older recipients, nothing naff, nothing cutesy, actually quite funny and well observed. Shall defo be returning to them when I want something different, particularly for male cards.

So the digi is "Summer Holiday" by Dr. Digi.(Coloured with Copics)
The greeting stamp was from a magazine freebie set called "Teeny Boppers" (Creative Stamping Magazine)
"Dad" wording and little campervan images were upcycled from another card.
I used the freebie stamp from last months Craft Stamper Mag to personalise the envelope.

Entered for the Crafty Addicts Challenge for August - Anything Goes or Summer Fun

Lobster Love

My friend asked me to draw her a pair of lobsters holding hands for her anniversary. Which is normal ;)

I used some beautiful paper my friend Helen gave me, specifically for polychromo pencils and it was lovely to work with. (Daler Rowney Mixed Media) No burnishing or major blending, I kind of liked the chunky look.

Not sure what she wanted it for but I think it would make a nice tattoo... though I couldn't escape how they are kinda like badass prawns. :) Badass-prawn-tattoo anyone?

Paint Swatch Cards

Had to break away from the Knitty Kitty Digi Launch and work on some card orders! I've wanted to try a "Paint Swatch" card for a bit and my friend (Thanks - Susan!) picked me up some paint chips from the DIY store. ( Paint swatch/chip? I'm not sure, but if you want to Pinterest for ideas, either term seems to bring up the projects using them.)

Here are the finished cards, I'm not sure I've done the ombré effect justice with this design? Might try another one of the suggestions for how to use them to create cards. It's a very frugal design though, using punches that rarely see the light of day, free swatches, part of the sequin hoard and some stamps I already had in the stash. (Also free DL card blanks my friend Helen gave me!) I tried it with free hand scrolls but wasn't happy with the result. What do you think?

"Happy Birthday" Stamp from Set 345 Fairy Doodles by Buzzcraft.

Scrolls are "Fantastic Flourishes" by Hero Arts, CL106