Skip in to Summer

Hello all - yes I know I have been MIA

A combination of things meant I have had to take a bit of a break from blogging and an ear infection/ migraine combo (not recommended) put pay to any crafting!

Anyhow, enough of that, you're not here to read me waffling on about boring stuff, you want to see pictures and how to's so here is the latest:

Make it Crafty Inspiration

So what do you think?

This image has just been released along with several other adorable images by Zoe's newest designer, Elena - don't you just love the expressions on their faces!!

Want a close up view?????

.....and the eagle eyed amongst you may very well have spotted that these girls have been coloured using a combination of Copic markers and coloured pencils - and yes my friends I am planning to write a tutorial on how to combine the two mediums next month..........watch this space!

OK, confession time - I actually coloured this image for Zoe a while a go and I forgot to take a note of Copics used (epic fail!) so to make up for it how about a HOW TO:

Subtle Sentiments

My intention was to add a sentiment to the card without detracting from the image which in my opinion should always take centre stage on a card, after all we all spend ages colouring them, right!!!

So I had a brain wave (probably what gave me the migraine) - why not stamp the sentiment on acetate.  To that end I grabbed my Stazon Ink (Memento does not play nice with acetate and you will make a horrible mess - trust me) and stamped a LOTV sentiment, which I then cut out by hand. I added a little colour with some Sharpie Markers and then attached it to my card using my tape pen.

Hey presto! A Subtle Sentiment.

SUPPLIES:

Girls Skipping Merrily - Make it Crafty

Sentiment stamp - LOTV

Paper - Baby Powder Oopsie Daisy by Imaginisce

Copics, Sharpies and coloured pencils

Flowers, pearls and punch from stash

Sewing Machine

Acetate

Stazon & Memento Ink

.....and I thought I would enter the girlies in a few challenges just for fun

Craft Challenges - Summer

Crafty Ribbons Challenge - Photo Inspiration

Digi Doodles - #116 Summertime

LOTV Thursday Challenge - Pretty in Pink

Crafty Hugs

Blooper has had a make-over!

Barbara, this is ALL your fault!!

After my Creative Calamities post she challenged me to

actually finish colouring Blooper the seahorse....

So he went from this:

to this:

.....and I confirm that I did this purely with Copics

  I erased the coloured pencil additions around his head and challenged myself to prove you can correct alcohol marker mistakes and end up with a pretty decent finished piece!

I guess I cannot leave it there.......

you want to know how I did it, am I right?

Now the shiny Copics phenomena has been causing bit of a stir, why does it happen, is it the ink, is it the paper.... blah, blah, blah!

All I can really tell you & show you is Blooper before and after and how I personally dealt with it.

Firstly, with the colourless blender I carefully lifted off the E27 and E29 on the lower part of Bloopers cheek that were refusing to blend and sitting on top of the card stock.  Do this gently or you will remove more than just the gloopy ink and wipe off the removed ink from the tip of the colourless blender on to some scrap paper.  Then as I already knew that I'd saturated my cardstock to the max and therefore could not add any more colour to the base of the cheek I opted to highlight the upper part of the cheek by removing some colour with yep you guessed it the colourless blender!

What do you think?

As for that smudgy mess I made on Bloopers dorsal fin!

Oh boy, now no amount of Colourless Blender was going to correct that one, so covering it up was order of the day!!

 I built up various layers of yellow, pink and green to give a pleasing look and hide the printer ink smudges ...........shhhh, no one will ever know they are there tee hee hee!!!

OK, at this point I started to curse........

.......not about the bleeding that occured, that was easy to solve.  I just kept pushing the unwanted areas back with colourless blender, allowing it to dry and repeating the process until all the pink was back where it should be.

Nope, my problem was the pink.....yee gads did I just say I had a problem with pink!

How on earth was I going to incorporate a pink belly with a brown seahorse......what had I been thinking????

My solution was to include browns in the pinks and pinks in the browns to pull the whole picture together and although I still think Bloopers tummy is a tad on the rosy side it has sort of worked.

And finally the dreaded BLOB!

No, I have not made it disappear via Photoshop Elements....all I used was colourless blender and a lot of patience.  As I said in my tutorial paler colours are much easier to remove than dark ones so after about 5 attempts with the blender ny on all the E000 had been removed!!

It then allowed me to go over the top with the browns and there is hardly any hint that I had had a dirty great blob of ink there at all!

I am the first to admit that sometimes the calamity is such that the bin is where your work is destined but I have hopefully proven that with a little patience, tenacity and the desire to rise to Barbara's challenge that a messy piece of work full of mistakes can be saved!!

Crafty Hugs

Dustin Pike Challenge - Primary Colours

Now before anyone says anything.....yes I know mustard orange is not a primary colour...

....... but I have coloured the clown as per the challenge!!

He was getting a little lonely peddling around on his uni-cycle so I decided to doodle in an audience for him!

SUPPLIES:

Doodle Dragon Digi - Circus 12 with Bonus

Papers - DCWV All About Boys Stack

Various star Quickutz dies

Sewing machine

and of course oodles of Copics....

CHALLENGES:

Incy Wincy Designs - Anything goes

Make it Monday - Anything goes

Victorine Challenge - #37 Birthday/Happy Everything

Love to Create - #21 Anything goes

Crafty Hugs