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

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

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

Kuretake Art & Graphic Pens

Last week I finally got my hands on a full set of the art and graphic twin pens from Kuretake - woo! so that I could make some samples for their shows tomorrow (don't miss them!) Here is a sneaky peek of one of them...

The stamps are from a Tim Holtz set and I've used the pens from the muted set to ink them up and stamp, the bird I went over with a waterbrush after to blend the pink tummy in so there wasn't such a defined line. I added stickles to the bird and eggs in the nest and finally some glossy accents to the eggs to make them stand out. The greeting is even stamped using the pen - I thought it would come out too blurry but they worked perfectly!

I'm not a great watercolourer but I love using these pens directly onto my stamps (I find they work better on rubber stamps than clear stamps), I had some pens to do this with a few years ago but they weren't nearly as good and left horrible fibres on the stamp - you don't get that with these as they have flexible rubber nibs. The muted colour set are my absolute favourite and work with a vintagey style of crafting but they are available in loads of colours.

I'm sure they have some fab demos and samples lined up for you tomorrow so have a look and get some tips (I will be! LOL)

Today I have spent the whole day researching trends, choosing colour palettes and planning my next product releases - all very exciting! planning so far ahead is bizarre, I was doing Christmas in April and now I'm planning for next spring / summer! I've even got some things pencilled in on my planner for 2013! Tomorrow the actual drawing and redrawing starts - thats the best part :o)

Sarah x

Watercolouring for Creativity International

Recently I was sent some Strathmore Paper sketchbooks by Creativity International to try out, one for drawing and one for watercolouring. As you probably know, watercolouring is not one of my strongest areas so always being up for a challenge, thats the one I started with!!

The first thing I was struck by was the quality of the paper, I have tried out a number of different papers before, usually I get frustrated at the buckling and decide to give up watercolours forever (or until I come across my Inktense pencils and fall in love all over again!) the only thing I have achieved a result I was proud of on is board. The paper in this pad was very thick (for crafters, think of the thickness of Bazzill cardstock) and had a lovely texture to it. It took me a long time to stop gazing at the snowy white perfection and start experimenting! To make things even more difficult for myself I decided not to start with my Inktense pencils but instead to dig out the tiny set of watercolour paints I have had for a million years and used a grand total of twice on my interior design coursework!

I wanted to just get used to the paper, try a few things and see if I could master it (and get as much paint on as possible to see if I could break it, ha!) You can see here the lovely texture of the paper

 

  I managed to get around 3 layers of paint on before the paper started to buckle ever so slightly (pretty good!) as you can see here...

 I managed 4 layers of Inktense colouring (for which you use less water) and still no buckling, it was also thick enough to be cut and layered onto a card using foam pads and look as good as a chipboard embellishment or cardstock sticker would - I will definitely be using it for my Inktense colouring with my crafts again.

Here is my image coloured with Inktense pencils which I made into a card (using the Papermania Kraft basics pad, Cuttlebug Swiss dots embossing folder and a scrap of paper from the TPC Christmas Village kit)

I will be trying out the drawing pad later this week and will post my thoughts on that one too (for now I'm still at the 'gazing at the snowy whiteness of the paper' stage before I start messing with it!)

Sarah x

Derwent Inktense & Watercolour Pencils

At the weekend I got some time to play with my lovely Derwent pencils. I must admit my natural instinct when it comes to colouring pencils is to reach for the Coloursoft pencils, they are so great to work with, they blend easy and I can get my usual bright bold and colourful look with them. I'm not really very good with watercolours, I find the overall result (in my hands at least!) to be too wishy washy and too messy, but I thought I would be brave and have a go with the Watercolour and Inktense pencils and see if I could get to grips with them and the differences between them.

I started with the Watercolour pencils, I used them to colour a stamped image using a water brush (also from Derwent) to blend. I don't think I have ever coloured in a stamped image before (and it probably shows!) I used a Staz-on Ink pad as these are solvent based and so won't bleed into your colours as you add water. The stamp is an old one from PSX that I've had for about 10 years.

I started by stamping my image and using the darkest red to shade the shadowy areas. I did make a few smudges as you can probably see! but on the whole I found it much easier than watercolours and much easier than I was expecting!!

As I got braver I started using strips of colour to boldly highlight the light and shade areas and using the waterbrush to blend them - as with the leaf below.

On the whole it took me far less time to colour this than it would have done with watercolours and I found it much easier. I definitely need some more practice though!!

While I was still feeling brave I broke open the Inktense Pencils, I stamped my image with Staz on again and started shading the face ready to blend with the water brush....

But as you can see in pic 2 I didn't take into account that when you add water to these the colour POPS, really seriously it looked like my witch had had a run in with a spray tan - BAD! luckily using the water brush I used lots of water to flood the area (do this slowly or it will smudge) and blot using kitchen towel, this reduced her luminous orange glow down to a healthy tan - she maybe just flew her broomstick too close to the sun one day!! LOL. The bold colours really appealed to me and overall I think I preferred them for that reason. Here is my final result....

As you can see I still made a few smudges, but I thought it was not bad for a first attempt! and you can still get a more subtle finish if you use the pencils very lightly (as I did on the background here..) I added some distress stickles to the background on the finished image and added to my card (using MME papers and Halloween ribbon from Crafty Ribbons, I can't remember where the Spider button came from, I think someone sent it me as part of an art swap,.)

Both pencils were very easy to use, overall I prefer the Inktense for the vibrant finish but if you prefer a more subtle tone then the Watercolour is the way to go, they would be great for vintage / shabby chic projects! I definitely will be getting in some more practice with both - I need it!!

Now back to the drawing board for me (literally!!)

Sarah x

p.s. if you're looking for the DT call you need to scroll all the way to the bottom and maybe even go back a page now I've done this epic post! :o)