Colouring Week

We're doing something a little different on the blog this week - we're all focusing on colouring images for our projects.  I'm sure many of you will be focusing on colouring if you're taking a certain class that's running online right now, as a few of us are too, so we thought we'd focus on colouring here too for a change.

Each day this week, right until next Sunday, each DT member will bring you a different colouring project and a little colouring tip.  Whilst none of us are Copic-certified, or profess to be colouring experts, we all love to colour in our own way and have picked up things that work for us along the way that we'll share with you for free this week ;-)

I had a great afternoon yesterday, sat in front of the TV, remember how much I love to colour, whilst I coloured in this cute little guy from SugarPea Designs which I've been itching to colour ever since it came out but I haven't had time.

Isn't he the cutest?  I coloured him with a mixture of copic and tria markers with my light source on the right creating natural shadows on the left of each item on the image.  Once he was finished I cut him out using the Small Stitched Rectangle die from Lawn Fawn and cut a mat from Sweater Weather using one of the Large Stitched Rectangle dies again from Lawn Fawn.  I used the same tria marker I used for his costume to get a matching strip to die cut the flag for the sentiment using the stitched sentiment flag die from Lil' Inker Designs and finished with some twine and a button in yellow to tie all the colours together.

My tip is for creating shadows in flesh tones - I do it with a colour you might not naturally turn to - a blue-violet (BV00 or BV000 in copic shades)   It might sound odd, but it really does work.  I've coloured the Matador's face below twice - once without the BV shade (on the left) and once with it (on the right)

I coloured the whole face with the lightest shade (E00) and then added some shadow under the hat line, around his nose, the far left of his face and his left ear, using E21 and then on the left I added a thinner shadow in the same places using E11 which gives a suntan effect, but on the right I used BV000 which gives a more natural shadow without darkening the skin tone.  You then blend it back with E00.

So - we hope you like our concept for the blog this week and have fun with all our DT members!


News from the Store:

We've had Lawn Fawn restocks this week.

We've had the latest releases from Wplus9 and Avery Elle.

Paper Smooches and Winnie and Walter are crossing the Atlantic and should be here in a couple of weeks.

Hero Arts inks and their stunning Christmas release will be in store this Tuesday!

Next Saturday is World Card Making Day so there will be something special happening here on the blog - don't forget to come back and check it out ;-)

Catch you next Saturday!

Fall is here!

Hello fellow crafters! I don't know about you, but I love love love fall. The oppressing heat finally goes away, the leaves turn to all kinds of colors, the grapes are ripe in the vineyards and beg to be … borrowed ;)

The season has so many joyful aspects, it's no surprise there are a ton of products in the store that let you celebrate it (and not just Thanksgiving). Today, I dug out my trusty Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves dies, which are finally back in stock again, and inked them with some Distress Ink.

By applying first a light shade of color, and then adding a darker shade of the same color family to the edges of the leaves, you can create a wonderful realistic effect. And the stitching on the leaves – swoon! For the stitching to come out well, I found that using heavier paper does the trick: there's simply more for the dies to sink into and leave that impression.

I also used heavy watercolor paper (almost like card stock) for the entire card. It has a wonderful texture that enhances the leaves and the overall "natural" look that I was going for. You can also see that on the stitched border I have around my front panel, which was cut with the Mama Elephant Basic Set Creative Cuts.

The background of my card was stamped with a few tiny images – I actually used a stamp set from a company that's not in the store, but Lawn Fawn has just released two stamp sets which allow you to achieve the same effect: Thank You Tags and Sweater Weather. They have tiny leaves, nuts, and even a pumpkin which are perfect for this season!

The sentiment was cut with Wplus9's Hand Lettered Hello die from adhesive wood veneer sheets – they come in a pack of ten and you can pick the color that goes best with your card. For mine, I choose one of the darker colors to make the word stand out more. And the texture, oh this beautiful texture…

To finish the card off, I added some sequins in matching fall colors – I know, not very "natural", but a girl needs her bling.

I hope you enjoyed today's card and I hope you have a beautiful fall weekend!