Colouring with ShinHan Markers

Over the weekend I got a little free time so I thought I'd finally open my ShinHan markers and one of my new stamps from Prima and see if I could remember how to colour in!

The image is stamped with a Memento Ink Pad which works perfectly with alcohol markers so there's no messy bleed at the edges. 

I started with the skin and hair, as I wanted to experiment to find the colour combinations I like, I think I've found a good one! I'll be sharing it in a video and post soon - I'm experimenting with some other skintones now so I can show you a few. 

Here is an in progress pic, showing some colour from the flowers and how I used the blender pen and greys to add light and shade - these pens are so beautiful to work with and the colours are so rich and vibrant!

and finally, the completed image - I've got a little bleed in one or two areas - my fault as I'm not used to working with brush markers so much (ShinHan also have some twin pens with fine nibs that i'll be experimenting with next!) and was a little heavy handed in some of the smaller areas - I know how to get that right next time though, its all about experimenting!

I'm working on some colouring tutorials with these fabulous new markers now, let me know if you'd like me to use this image in one of them or if there are any specific stamps you'd like to see me work on or colour along with me on and I'll do my very best to accommodate!

Thank you for dropping by today!

Sarah x

Making Cards Magazine Cover Mount!

This month there is another Sarah Hurley cover mount on the front of Making Cards magazine!

This time, a cute bunny stamp! Here is one of the projects I made with mine...

I'd love to see what you make with your stamp, please leave me your links or post them over on my Facebook Page or Making Cards Magazine Facebook page

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Paint Resist Christmas Cards

Today I'm sharing two Christmas cards I made using Tim Holtz Christmas Blueprint stamps and Tim Holtz / Ranger Distress Paint dabbers. Both cards I've kept very simple but I love the alternative colour scheme!

For this first card I uses the Snowflake stamp from the set, I stamped it onto a luggage tag using Perfect Medium and embossed it in clear embossing powder. While that cooled I cut a kraft card mat for my card blank, covered it in frosted film and rounded the corners.

Once my embossing was cool, I misted the tag lightly with water and took Paint Dabbers in Broken China, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed (I know it looks like more than 3 colours, I overlapped and mixed them onto the tag!) I Started with the Picked Raspberry down the edge and then blended the blue and yellow in from the other side.

I allowed the colours to overlap as I went before taking some kitchen towel and wiping the excess off in a circular motion to blend the colours even more. once it was completely dry I added some vintage style glass glitter from Stampin Up on part of the edge (Glossy Accents works perfectly for adhering this!) and some dots of Liquid Pearl to embellish

This card uses the Christmas Tree from the same set but using the exact same technique, here is a little close up...

I love working with these paints and the colours are gorgeous!!

I hope you like my alternative Christmas cards and I hope your preparations are nearly done, as I'm at Create & Craft for the next two days I finished mine today (eek!) I'm so relieved we have everything and I even got to stroke a pony on the way out of the supermarket (the local riding school was raising funds outside) I'm starting to feel very Christmassy :o)

Than you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Papercraft Inspirations Cover!

I was so thrilled to hear from my editor that my project had made the cover of Papercraft Inspirations for the January issue (what a fab way to start the new year!!) but I was even more thrilled to walk into Sainsburys yesterday and see it in real life, eeek! No matter how many times I'm published, it's just as exciting every single time!

I loved making this set of cards using Penny Black stamps with Derwent Inktense pencils and blocks, Sizzix dies and DCWV papers, and I'm so pleased it made the cover! I hope you can pick up a copy, there are so many fantastic projects this issue, it's one not to be missed :o)

It's been a crazy busy week here at Hurley HQ, we've despatched a record number of orders over the last couple of weeks as well as finalising lots of new products and working on other projects and plans for the new year - I'm very lucky to have B and Lisa (my lovely new creative assistant) to help me (and Fuzzybutt for reassuring hugs and woofs throughout the day of course) my Design Team have pulled together the most fantastic projects for something we have planned for you for next week too, I can't wait to show you more! I thought this year had been busy, but with everything we have planned for next year, I think we better hang on to our hats!! So excited...

I'll be back over the weekend to share some more of my December Daily album with you, I hope you can pop back to check it out.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

A Little Peek at Project Life

I had planned to share a Project Life spread with you today but I've not had a chance to take the pictures! so instead, I'm going to share a little peek at a Project Life spread I started last night, I've been using my Doodle Doll stamps lots in my Project Life lately...

This one is coloured with Pentel watercolour pens and the wooden veneer feather is embossed with gold pearl WOW embossing powder.

I will be back to being a better blogger very soon (promise!) but for now I must get back to the drawing board, look out for sneak peeks of what I'm up to via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram :o)

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Papercraft Inspirations Feature & some news!

This month I have some cards made with some cute Penny Black stamps in Papercraft Inspirations, here is a little peek that the magazine shared on their Facebook page...

I hope you can pick up  a copy to take a look!

I'm also super excited to tell you, I've joined the magazine as one of their crafty experts (so excited!) so if you have any questions for me, please send them to me or the magazine and you could see the solution featured in a future issue!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

A Few of My Favourite Things... Giveaway!

Today I'm having a little giveaway in partnership with my friends at Printed.com!

The prize is:

* these 4 exclusive stamps from this months 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit club add ons
* a voucher from Printed.com for 20% off your Instagram printing
* a 10% voucher for my shop


It's super easy! just add yourself to the linky thingy below (and to my blog followers if you'd like to too!) and I will draw a winner at random next week, you have 7 days from today to enter, the closing date is June 5th at midnight GMT.

As well as this, I'm also offering a free add on next month for anyone who subscribes to the kit between now and the closing date! You can see all the information and subscribe here, to join the 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' newsletter for kit reveals please email me here.

If there are over 100 entries I will give away a couple of vouchers to a few runners up too, so tell your friends and send them this way! :o)

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Elaine's Birthday Butterfly

Today is the lovely Elaine's birthday from my Design Team and she set some of her crafty friends a little challenge, as she loves butterflies, she sent us all a plain card butterfly cut using one of my SVG files on the Silhouette and we all had to decorate it for her however we wished!  Here is my butterfly for Elaine...

I used layers of Tim Holtz Distress paint through my stencils to create a colourful textured background before doodling around the edge of the wings and then stamped randomly with crackle texture, some stars and the 'Someday I'll Fly Away' sentiment (from my stamp sets) This is now winging it's way (pardon the pun!) to Elaine, I hope she likes it :o) Happy Birthday Sweetie!!! x

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Sepia Colouring with Promarkers

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who watched the Create & Craft shows last week and emailed in, tweeted / facebooked etc... it's lovely to get all of your feedback, makes all the hard work worthwhile! One of the things we got the most emails about (I do read them all after the show even if they are not read out on air!) was the Sepia colouring I showed. I will show this again on a future show, but in the meantime, here is the card I made as a reference for you...

The image is Queenie and Princess from the Little Darlings range, I stamped it with an Adirondack inkpad in Espresso (the softer brown colour is much better with Sepia colouring) the Promarker colours I used are - Burnt Sienna, Cinnamon, Tan, Putty and Almond. Here is a little close up...

The papers used are from Craftwork Cards & the Grace Taylor range (from Trimcraft stockists) and I have distressed the edges and run a tan Promarker along the edges to define the layers (great if you don't want to use distress inks as it gives just a soft bleed)

If you have a favourite image that you would like to me show in sepia, please let me know here in the comments, I will try to do two or three of them over the next few weeks to give you more Sepia inspiration!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Create & Craft Shows

Just a quick reminder that I will be back on Create & Craft tonight, tomorrow and Saturday! Today's show has been rescheduled from 8pm to 10pm, so if you had it set to record, don't forget to change it!

I hope you can join me, there are some fab Promarker sets and stamps, here is a little peek at one of my demos, some unusual choices for skintones... ;o)

If you pop back later I have a little download scheduled for you too to fit with the new sets :o)

Thanks for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Be Amazing!

Last week when my new art journal stamps came in, I couldn't wait to have a go with them myself! Unfortunately my art journal was wet as I'd just done lots of inky pages, but I grabbed a card blank and had a go on that instead!

I showed you a little sneaky peek of this in my last post, but here is the whole thing! I used Pentel watercolour tubes to make a painty background - I'm usually not a fan of watercolours but these come out almost like acrylics they're so rich so I can still get the bold colours and the bit of texture that I like in my work.

I used the bubble wrap stamp from my backgrounds set with a Hero Arts neon inkpad and randomly stamped over the top once dry (I used a heat gun, too impatient!) then using a Staz on ink pad I stamped my girl and accessories onto a separate piece of card and coloured them with Pentel watercolour pens and a waterbrush

Finally I layered everything together and stamped the border and 'Be Amazing' words along with lots of the bookprint stars (my fave!) and doodled with a white gel pen to highlight a few of them

You can get hold of my art journal stamps here and check out your local Pentel stockist here.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Scrapbooking Again!

So, this week I completely reorganised my studio (with B's help of course!) and broke my finger in the process (boo!) which gave me some more space, a load of 'new' stuff I'd forgotten I had and a fresh desire to get back to scrapping - I'm not good at chaos and with the addition of all my stock and new products I'd started just closing the door and not wanting to go in there, sad really as it was my little haven, but now it is my haven of calm and creativity once again, I'm so happy!

I actually took the time out, after finishing up some magazine projects, to break open my own 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit and get scrapping! I made this layout using Instagram prints...

I also used a set of my 'Say Cheese' Stamps, a Hero Arts Neon ink pad and some glittery letters from Pink Paislee. Here are a few close ups...

The new subscription places I added for this months kits are nearly all gone now, so if you'd like to sign up, please do hurry! I'd hate you to miss out, you can get all the info and sign up here on my website.

Now, I must be off, as you may know, myself and my lovely friend Phill Martin, who also guest presents on Create & Craft, have a brand new range launching tomorrow, if you'd like to join us, you can get the info here on Facebook!

I know some of you are desperately waiting for the DT call info, I will be posting it Friday so I can get the launch sorted out first, so please check back then, we can't wait to see your applications!

Thank you so much for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Promarker Charts & Stamp, Kit Club and DT Call Updates!!

so, an epic post from me today basically! Thank you to everyone who watched the show on Create & Craft on Thursday, I had so many lovely messages and have now got round to replying to them all!

As promised, I'm posting here the updated complete Promarker chart with the new seasonal colours added, free to download, nothing to sign up for, no catch - I'm just nice like that ;o)

Download yours here!

Now, a few updates from me - firstly, I have been working with a fabbo new stamp manufacturer to make my stamps and as a result I've managed to bring the costs down, I'm passing the whole saving straight to you, so my A6 stamp sets are now £1 cheaper!

 

I now also have stock of my stamps for Personal Impressions which are also on my website for you.

Secondly, I've opened up some more subscription places for the next 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit club and I have a sneaky peek of the stamps that will be in that kit...

Please do be quick if you want to sign up, sub places went in just a few days last time and the extra kits sold out within 2 days!

Finally, the rumours are true! I will shortly be holding a Design Team call, details will be posted here on my blog next week. I'm so looking forward to adding a couple of people to our lovely friendly team! :o)

I hope you have fun colourful weekends!

Thank you for dropping by today
Sarah x

Fussy Cutting & Colouring In!

Today, I'm sharing another card you may have spotted on my Create & Craft shows for Letraset. This one combines a stamped, coloured image with some fussy cut papers...

The image is a stamp from Stampavie (available from Bramwells) coloured with a combination of Promarkers & Flexmarkers. The papers are from a pack of Websters Pages 8" x 8" papers that I've had for a while, they feature lovely botanical scenes but they weren't really my style and I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, but I thought they fitted this card perfectly! so I dug them out and began fussy cutting and building up the elements around the image creating a little rolled back frame and lots of 3D elements. Here is a little close up so you can get a good look at the colouring...

I should also let you know that Letraset are having a competition on their Facebook page this week and you can win some Flexmarkers every day - you don't want to miss this one! You can find their Facebook page here to join in!

Now I must finish off a few things before I attempt a few hours sleep, I'm currently working on some new projects that I'm very excited about, it makes switching my brain off at night a bit difficult! I'll have some more exciting news about Letraset to share with you in a couple of days as well as an update on the 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit club (please see previous post, and wow! what an amazing response so far!!!!) so look out for that :o)

Thanks so much for dropping by today!
Sarah x

January Craft Magazines

This month I've popped up in two craft magazines, I hope you can get hold of copies! First up, a little peek at some cards for the January issue of Making Cards magazine, I made three cards for this set but they only had room for two of them, so here is the third!...

This set of cards uses masking and Promarkers along with some gorgeous Paper Smooches stamps from Make the Day Special - love them!

I'm also the guest expert for Papercraft Inspirations magazine this month with some tips and tricks for selling your hand made cards.

Now I must be off, busy day today and I'm now prepping some stuff for something brand new I'm bringing you in a few weeks, I'm SO excited I can't tell you! I'm revealing all to my Design Team tomorrow and my tummy is all in knots, lol.

Thank you for your well wishes by the way, I'm most definitely on the mend now and although I'm sad I won't be going to CHA after all (a combination of illness and deadlines made it just impossible in the end, boo!) I am looking forward to getting a new pooter instead - a little treat to cheer me up while I look forward to the next one!

Thanks for dropping by today!
Sarah x 

Watercolour Rose Card with Derwent Inktense

Todays card is not my normal style, but B wanted a Birthday card for his Aunt so I made one that I knew she would like, and I really enjoyed making something I maybe wouldn't have normally...

 

The stamp is an old one by PSX, I've had it for around 10 years but I still love it :o) I stamped it with Staz on Ink onto watercolour paper and coloured the image with Derwent Inktense pencils before distressing the edges and inking the background with Tim Holtz Distress inks in Tea Dye and Walnut stain. I then masked off the image with another one I had stamped on scrap paper and lightly flicked with water before blotting to create the aged effect. Here is a close up...

Today I have been working on some design revisions and some new illustration work in between phone calls and emails! This evening I have some more illustration to do and some writing. I'm really hoping to get back into my studio in the next day or so, its far too long since I crafted and I have the urge to scrapbook!

Thanks for dropping by today!
Sarah x

I {Heart} Derwent Inktense!

Today I'm featured over on the Derwent blog (yay!) with a Valentine project using Inktense Pencils and Inktense Blocks, here is a little preview...

You can pop over and see the full project here - where I give some tips and tricks for colouring and stamping with inktense.

Thank you for dropping by today! :o)

Sarah x

Paper Piecing

This week I've been sicky again, bleurgh! I've managed to infect B too (not a happy bunny, oooops!) yesterday we spent the evening curled up on the sofa eating soup (we never eat soup so I have no idea how we even had a tin in the cupboard! I imagine his mum popped it in there so we had some 'proper' food in the house, like mums do! LOL) and watching funny stuff to lift our spirits (I did sneak my sketch pad over despite my orders to rest though!)

Today I had to get back to my desk (albeit under a duvet and wrapped in lots of warm PJ's)  Craftime have got me hard at work on the new collections, and I only have a few weeks now to get them finished - there is SO much to do still, eeeeeek!

Today I'm sharing a paper piecing card with October Afternoon's 'Rocket Age' line...

I stamped the different parts of the image onto scraps of cardstock and then cut them out and layered them - I love paper piecing whether its to make up an image or a scene, I think its so effective and a great way to use your stamps if you're not keen on colouring in!

Supplies - October Afternoon Rocket Age Papers & Stamps from Sarah's Cards, Seam Binding from Crafty Ribbons

Thanks for taking a look, I'll be back tomorrow with lots of Halloween projects to share!!

Sarah x

Promarker Storage and A Quick Card

Today I made this card, again using the Kuretake papers that are my current obssession (it's not my fault, I love polka dots!) and my Woodland Whimsies Owl & Cloud stamps, coloured with my Promarkers. This took about 10 minutes - perfect for one of those last minute "ooops I forgot til just now" cards.

I've had lots of questions about how I store my Promarkers and what I keep them all in, well, you may have seen this big black box in the background of most of the photos taken on my work table....

Well, it contains all my Promarkers...

Finally, a box that fits them all in and with a bit of space in case Letraset make more colours! :o) and best of all it was only about a fiver in the sale from one of those 'homeware' shops my Mother-in-Law makes me go to every so often in her attempts to try and 'domesticate' me, while I of course look for things to store craft stash in or things I can alter, and completely ignore all kitchen and cleaning equipment, LOL

Thanks for popping by!

Sarah x