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Wellllllll I thought I had the video for today's card, but apparently my phone ate it. Sorry about that!
I'm back from my #notvacation and ready to get crafty again! I'm starting with this adorable and sweet space image. You know how I feel about space images!
I colored this on a live with my class group. First, I stamped the image on Wheat cardstock, and then quickly filled in the sky with a Copic Marker. One of the things about coloring with colored pencil is that it tends to be more time-consuming than other mediums, so I shortcut with Copic often!
I was going to blend it all to remove streaks, but while I was coloring - I thought the streaks there from the first layer of marker looked atmospheric, so I liked it and left it - remember - perfection is for Serial killers!
The smaller stars in the image I colored over so some were dark, some light. Then I colored the rest of the image with Luminance pencils, starting as I always do with a layer of white under all the colors for that glowy look. I threw colored shadows on the surface of the moon as well. So easy and quick to color with I think 5 pencils? What adorable images.
I hope you have a great week ahead! Loveyameanitbye.
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It's been a while since I posted a colored pencil project and video, so now that I sort of have my schedule back, I thought I'd bring you one today, along with some stories about baby birds.
I not only have baby wrens in my mailbox, but in a nearby flowerbed, I have baby cardinals! They were testing their wings today and it was soooooo cute! They are fat, fluffy little things, and so awkward and adorable!
Anyway, I'll miss all the cheeping by the front door when they move on. The circle of life sucks sometimes when you just want your birds to stay babies.
I am finally home for a bit, so I thought I'd revisit something I haven't done in a while - a colored pencil project. I find it so relaxing.
I pulled out my favorites - Luminance Pencils, and some kraft cardstock. I love these pencils the most on darker cardstock. These pencils are not only the creamiest, most blendable pencils in my arsenal, but they're available in open stock, so you can build your collection slowly if you want. They are not inexpensive, but they're worth it.
And now - for something completely different, to help me celebrate my love of all things birds - this ADORABLE graphic toucan! He comes in a builder format so that you can get the colors right. And pro tip - because he's a builder, you should die cut the bird shape FIRST so that you know where to put all his little body parts, which sounds super horrible now that I've typed that :). Just pop the die cut back into the negative space in your MISTI to stamp the image on top of the die cut. I also cut the foliage with these beautiful dies, and glued them down behind him. The colors on his beak are Wild Dandelion and Sweet Mango - I used the cubes so I could ink each part separately. The sentiment is from the same stamp set.
I LOVE when they include a turnabout stencil in a release. Stencils are pretty much my favorite, and I love coming up with four color combos that tickle my fancy. This is definitely a tickly one - Wild Dandelion, Sea Glass, Key Lime, Slate and black. This stencil is unique because it's a twofer. You get the little cross-like shape in a turnabout but also the octagon (which I call a hexie in my video - ignore me - it's been a crazy few years) that fills in the open spaces in the first stencil. I'll have a video on this card tomorrow. The dies are from this set, and the little outline on that one yellow guy is from this companion stamp set.
This next card reminds me of my friend Kat. We've talked a lot in the last few years about where to find joy. And it's not on the top of Niagara Falls or on an African Safari. It's really in little ordinary things that happen every day. Like baby cardinals and wrens and a few moments to make a card, uninterrupted.
And finally - a trip back in time to the 80's - which, if we're all being honest, have yet to be topped as a decade.
I got into needlework at some point in that decade, and I remember many a happy hour spent on the couch with my mom. We watched the world's best TV shows - Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote, Simon & Simon, Moonlighting - and I would cross-stitch or needlepoint.
My mom and my sister actually know how to sew - I have a strange allergy to sewing machines, but I love hand stitching so much. I miss those days of needlework, but I'm so happy that it's making its way into the stamping world, because now I can have both.
This new stitching die is very well designed - the center of the larger flower is a larger hole because you'll be going into it multiple times. It's an easy and quick project to finish, and they even have a little stitching kit with floss and needles, and an extra cardstock pack to match! The matching stamp set coordinates too so you can do a part stitched, part stamped card, but I enjoyed immersing myself in stitching.
Oh before the recipe, please remember as hurricane bears down on those of us in the former vast inland sea - you do NOT need liquid bleach. I sent this bleach via Amazon to Harvey impacted areas in Houston after the hurricane and was SHOCKED at how many people didn't know about it. It's always in my house - several containers of it. When you need it, you don't want it to be after a flood when everyone has cleared the shelves of everything useful.
I have a lot of food allergies, and so I try to make 99% of my own food from actual whole foods that don't have a bunch of garbage in them. I've been on the hunt for the perfect veggie burger recipe since the 90s, and I've finally found it. I LOVE these, and have them in the freezer at all times.
