Watercolour Pencils

Happy New Year! Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you will continue to join me here. All your comments are very much appreciated.

A very exciting development in the New Year is the arrival of Stampin' Up's new Watercolour pencils as a fabulous new colouring medium. At the moment there is a fairly limited palette of thirteen SU colours, but hopefully more will be introduced as time goes on. You can find them in the new Occasions catalogue which goes live on 4th January.

Having had a play with them over Christmas I am hooked! You can use them as colouring pencils or you can then create watercolour effects by going over your colouring with a Blender Pen or Aqua Painter. I tried with both, but my personal preference was the Aqua Painter. I initially worried that the Aqua Painter would be less controlled and envisaged too much water where I didn't want it, but it actually worked brilliantly.

I started off by colouring the gorgeous paper that is FREE during Saleabration with any order of £45. For the colourful version I used a mixture of Calypso Coral and Melon Mambo for the flowers (the pencils blend very easily) and Old Olive for the larger leaves. There is only one green available at the moment, so I first coloured the smaller leaves in Daffodil Delight and then went over them again with Bermuda Bay. I worked in small areas, colouring and then using the Aqua Painter. Of course the beauty of these new pencils is that you can add colour to your stamped images and I have a lot I want to try!

The second, more muted card uses the same paper but a more limited palette of just Early Expresso and Basic Grey. I also added some Wink of Stella to add a bit of glitter to the stamens.

You absolutely do not have to be some hot shot colourist to get amazing effects with these pencils. You can actually be very 'scribbly' and the Aqua Painter takes it all in its stride! I'm sure I'll be posting lots of coloured cards this year!

Finally here is a link to a great video from Shannon West where she shows you this great new product in action. These super pencils will be available from my website from the 4th January.

Happy colouring! April x

Up and Away

Hello! Here is a Z-fold card that I have made using a lovely bundle that is on its way in the Spring catalogue. I wouldn't say I am a huge fan of hot air balloons. I certainly wouldn't travel in one! However, I do love these stamps and dies - particularly the rather cute clouds.

Card-making has sadly taken a back seat as I am still residing in the House of Lurgy, or specifically the House of Sinusitis. Small advances have been made though, including frenzied present wrapping today that has made a dent in things. My friend dropped by today to deliver presents. I do need to share the 3D tag that came with my present...

 

Isn't that fab? I think she would probably want me to point out that her young daughter wrote the tag! I am definitely keeping it!

 

 Now we just need to get that Christmas tree up! Happy crafting, April x

 

Very festive best wishes to Di, Parsnip and all the Playground inmates at Pixie's Snippets Playground!

T-Shirts

 

 

Hello! We are still a house of illness at the moment, but I have managed to drag myself to the craft heap to make some tiny t-shirts. Something about those tiddly collars was quite cheering!

 

They are made from dsp snippets using the T-shirt Builder Framelits that are arriving in the SU Spring catalogue. There are also super co-ordinating stamps on their way, so you can design your own bespoke range of tops! Lots of fun to make and an antidote to Christmas cards.

 

Thank you lovely Di for choosing my reindeer as one of your weekly picks! If you are lacking any crafty inspiration, Pixie's Snippets Playground is the place to go! I am sending my t-shirts there, but I think they may be a bit girly for Parsnip...

 

Happy crafting! April x

More Reindeer!

 

 

Hello! Unfortunately I am resembling Coughing Bob Fleming at the moment and am not up for much. I did feel inspired by the snippet-busting paper piecing video from Stampin' Up to make this reindeer card. Sticking strips of card down to make a background is about all I am able to manage at the moment between mammoth coughing fits! The reindeer were already hanging around from a previous project so they got stuck down too!

 

My reindeer are prancing off to see Di and Parsnip at Pixie's Snippets Playground as I know how much Parsnip enjoys a reindeer ride! They are also off to the Global Design Project colour challenge.

 

Happy crafting! April x

 

 



52 CCT Pick a Previous 2016 Challenge

Hello and welcome to the last challenge of the year at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. For our December challenge you can choose any of our previous challenges - sketch, colour, theme, technique or stash - from 2016. We have lots of exciting changes coming up at 52CCT! We will also be announcing the new members who are joining our DT team very soon.

Here is my take on the theme challenge back in April - Christmas Foliage. I created a wooden 'shelf' with SU's Hardwood stamp, then made a bunch of foliage using the fabulous Pretty Pines Thinlits.

We can't wait to see your Christmas creations!

Happy festive crafting! April x

Santa's Sleigh

Hello! Here's another Christmas card made with the lovely Santa's Sleigh bundle. I used copper foil for the sleigh which I love, combined with a snippet of Real Red. I like the little teddy poking up out of the presents. Looks like he could easily take the reins! A short blog post today as I am annoyingly full of a cold - one of those colds that quickly appears with no warning! Not great for card-making.

I'm sending the cousin of Parsnip off to Di at Pixie's Snippets Playground where they can get up to festive mischief!

Happy crafting! April x