Wednesday 23 February 2011

One for the boys and some more craft room peeks!

Hello crafty friends! How are you all doing? My rash is fading fast and I've had a blessed stress-free week this week which makes a lovely change. I've made 3 cards and have managed to start colouring some Christmas images even!! Without further ado, here's my first card of the day...

It's Riley coloured with copics and then some lyra pencil shading on the background. This card is for my brother's birthday. He's a gardener so I bought this stamp with him in mind. These beautiful papers are by Basic Grey. The sentiment stamp was a freebie with Craft Stamper magazine- I use it so much!

I'd like to enter this into:
Allsorts Challenge- inspired by nature
Crafty Creations- at the bottom of my garden
Sweet Stop Sketches- sketch and theme of spring

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Riley, freebie); Copics; Lyra pencils; Papers (Basic Grey); Nesties; Black fine liner; Button (Walmart); String

Next up is a card for our friend's little boy. I coloured this Elzybells image with copics. I can't remember where the background paper is from. I dragged out my Cuttlebug embossing folders which I hardly ever use. The sentiment is Pink Petticoat punched out with my new Stampin Up word window punch.

I'd like to enter this into:
Spoon Full of Sugar- birthday wishes

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Elzybells); Copics; Paper (?); Assorted cardstock; Cuttlebug embossing folders; Sentiment (Pink Petticoat); Punches (Woodware, Stampin Up); Star die (Die-namics)

Last card is for another friend's little boy. I've again used Riley and coloured him with copics. The background I sponged with blue ink to give the effect of sky and clouds. I used individual transfer letters to spell "alex". The papers are Making Memories.

I'd like to enter this into:
Stamp Something- funky and bright

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Riley; Elzybells); Copics; Ink; Papers (Making Memories); Punch (Woodware); Transfers; Star die (Die-namics); Tab die (Die-namics); Buttons

I have another couple of sneak peeks of my updated craft room to show you. Oooh- pretty colours!!!

Mmmm, can you see what it is?!!!

Thanks so much for dropping by today and a bigger thank you if you've left me a comment, I really do appreciate them. I hope you all have a lovely week and have lots of crafting fun xx

Thursday 17 February 2011

3 cards and my new colour guide

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a great week. As usual in the Honey Bootique household it's a case of another day, another drama. Really at some point, things have got to settle down, it's getting ridiculous!! I ended up in casualty yesterday morning- a severe allergic reaction to anti inflammatories I've been taking for my back. I'm covered head to toe in ugly red big spots and my mouth and lips are all swollen!!!! Apparently when it reaches your lips, you're in trouble as if it gets to your throat you can have trouble breathing. I do have spots in my mouth but luckily it didn't reach my throat.
We do have some good news though- my Mum's drain has dramatically reduced in the last week. We reckon she's down from about 17ml to about 4ml now!! Yay yay yay!!!

Today I have 3 cards to show you and my new colour guide I made using my Bind It All. I think it's going to be really useful so I'd like to share it with you.

Onto my first card. I LOVE this Stamping Bella stamp. Now you know I can't get enough Bellas but I seriously think this is one of my favs. It's such a big stamp and I just love her smile. It's so wide, it cheers me up every time I look at it. I coloured her with watercolour pencils and used Lyra pencils for the grass and outlined the whole image with copics. I tried to make the coffee look like Starbucks and the donuts like Krispy Kreme! I adore this beautiful paper by My Mind's Eye and did plenty of paper piecing. The sentiment is Papertrey Ink.

I'd like to enter this into:
Stamptacular Sunday- Lovin' from the oven
Our Creative Corner- Cut it out (used paper piecing)


Here is a close up.

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella, Papertrey Ink); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Copics; Nesties; Papers (My Mind's Eye); Buttons (Walmart); Sewing machine

Onto my second card which is for my friend's twin girls. I used this gorgeous Penny Black teddy coloured with watercolour pencils, again grass coloured with lyras and outlined image with copics. Papers are by Making Memories and scalloped borders are Die-namics dies.

I'd like to enter this into:
Penny Black Challenge- pretty in pink
Scrap Creations- spring fever

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Penny Black); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Copics; Papers (Making Memories); Assorted cardstock); Nesties; Die-namic dies; Bow (?); Lettering (freebie); Stickles

My last card is another Bella! As usual I coloured her with watercolour pencils, paper pieced her dress and outlined her with copics. The papers are by Basic Grey. Sentiment is Hero Arts.

I'd like to enter this into:
Secret Crafter- use flowers

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella; Hero Arts); Watercolour pencils; Copics; Papers (Basic Grey); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Flower (Ebay); Button (Walmart); Pearls (freebies); decorative border (K & Co); Corner punch; Stickles

And lastly here is my colour guide!! Yay. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I decided to create this to get organised with my colouring and I put ALOT of effort into working out what pages I was going to have and the layout etc but I have to say it took ten times longer because of the Bind It All products. Maybe I've missed something but you'd expect the 8" x 8" page protectors to work with the 8" x 8" covers or at least the coveralls. Well, they don't!!! They're too big so to cut a long story short I ended up making my own covers out of some old cardboard so that they could incorporate the page protectors. So here is the cover made with papers from DCWV. I added some stitching, used Sizzix lettering and the large zig zag die from MFT.

On the inside cover I made a pocket to put extra template lists in.

This post shows how I've divided my colour guide up by the different colour mediums I use- brush markers, copics, lyra pencils and watercolour pencils and then I've added a section at the back for notes (ie useful websites with colour tutorials on, useful books with colour techniques etc). I made these sections using my new Stampin Up tab punch with computer generated text. Eagle eyes will notice that the font is the same as the one used on my tabs on my blog!

I took ages creating all the pages using a free graphics package I downloaded. I wanted the whole guide to incorporate the feel and look of my blog and to have a uniform feel so I designed a header and footer for each of the pages using the fonts from my blog and a cartoony design. I'm also going to be designing a craft guide soon (more on that another time) so I will be designing very similar templates for that.

Each colour medium first contains the colour groups. With my watercolour pencils I decided purely to list the colours I had as I'm not going to expand my collection any further. Some of these colour groups go onto 2 pages so I have put them in page protectors. I also did this as I like to take the pages out to place next to my designers papers to check for the right colour match to know which papers to use.

This second photo show my Lyra pencils colour groups. This is how I have done the other colour groups for the other mediums whereby I have listed all the colours but merely coloured the ones I actually have.

For each medium I have also done a template for my favourite colour combos I use. I'm sure if you're like me, you have some colours you use regularly eg to do grass or hair etc but if you're disorganised like me, you never write them down and then have to figure them out every time you colour a new image!! So I decided to get organised. As you can see this one is for watercolour pencils. I'll use the example of my Bellas as I generally colour their hair using the same colours so under description I would write "Bella hair colour" and then under watercolour pencils colours I would colour a bit of the colour on the top of the first box and then underneath write "032 light ochre", "059 brown" in second box and "049" umber in third box.

The smaller templates are actually also removable and you can add several pages underneath as you can see closely they are held in place by photo corners, this makes using the guide much more flexible if you want to change things or make a mistake.

For the copics, I did an additional page of recommended copic colours. This is because there are so many sites out there with copic tutorials where they recommend certain colour combos eg for doing black hair but maybe I haven't tried them out yet but think I will use them in the future. So if I come across them, I can immediately write them down and know where there are for future use.

And here is the back page.

I'd like to enter this for:
Little Claire's Blog- anything goes
Stampin with the dragon- anything goes
CRAFT- not a card

I hope you liked my colour guide! I've used it loads already and can't wait to start filling it in. If anyone has any questions about it, don't hesitate to ask me!

Crafty stash used: Bind It All machine, wires, page protectors; assorted cardstock; recycled cardboard; papers (DCWV); Sewing machine, Lettering (Sizzix); Flowers; Buttons (Walmart); Punch (Stampin Up)

Thursday 10 February 2011

A break from the norm...

Hi there crafty people! How is your week going? I'm OK, still pathetically tired from my op. I thought my energy levels would increase dramatically after the op but I've still yet to see it but I remain optimistic! lol. We saw Mum's oncologist on Monday and they have said they would definately still like to give her chemo but when the drain is out. We have to go back for a review in 6 weeks as they have said that a few weeks here or there shouldn't matter for the chemo which is what we were worried about. We just hope and pray for the bile to stop leaking as the sooner she has the chemo the better.

Right enough personal stuff, onto the crafting! As the title of this post reads, my crafting has taken a bit of a different turn this week. We have some non-cute cards and some jewellery!

First up is a card for my Auntie. I really love the papers on this one. The stamp is by Inkadinkado coloured with watercolour pencils. The papers are by Bo Bunny (brown and large dots) and Fancy Pants (small dots). The ribbon was a lighter brown but I coloured it with copics to match the colour scheme.

I'd like to enter this for:
Pile It On- bright and breezy ( you can't get more bright and breezy than a sunflower!)

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Inkadinkado); Papers (Bo Bunny, Fancy Pants); Nesties; Watercolour pencils; Ribbon (?); Sunflower (?); Gems (Lakeland); Copics; Button (Walmart); Twine (recycled)

Next up another card for my Auntie. I used the sketch from one of my CPS sketch books. The butterflies are by Stampington and the sentiment is by Stampsmith. Papers are Laura Ashley and I used my new Tim Holtz paper distresser liberally!

I'd like to enter this into:

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stampington, Stampsmith); Papers (Laura Ashley); Assorted cardstock; Paper distresser; Ribbon (recycled); Flower (Ebay); Button (Walmart); Thread; Pearls (Prima)

Whooooo! Something I haven't done in yonks..... some jewellery!!! Here is a necklace and earring set I made for myself. I love the colours and mixture of Swarovski crystals and pearls plus the cord gives it a different twist.

Here is a close up of the necklace beads.... so pretty!

Crafty stash used: jewellery kit (Shiney Rocks)

Ha! You didn't think I could go a whole post without some cuteness did you???!! Here is a card for one of my friend's little boys. Stamp is by Elzybells coloured with watercolour pencils and copics. Balloon is paper pieced and background is sponged with ink. Paper is by Colourbok. Sentiment is by Papertrey Ink.

I'd like to enter this into:

Wheeeeeeee!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Elzybells, Papertrey Ink); Watercolour pencils; Copics; Nesties; Papers (Colourbok); Assorted cardstock; Die-namics die (MFT); Button (Walmart); String; Ink

And lastly some new crafty stash. The Sizzix dies I'm going to use for some fabric crafting. The stamps were a new range I'd not heard of before but I love the folksy style. I'm definately going to be crafting Christmas cards throughout the year this year, I'm determined! I thought some new stamps (and I've order some new papers) would give me the push to start early on.

Ooh, one last thing I'd like to say thank you to the lovely Karen at paperscissorsandglitter for sending me a love blog award. I'm really touched Karen for sending me such a sweet email! I'd like to spread the love to all my fellow crafters out there! Big hugs!! xx

Thanks for dropping by today. I really appreciate every comment you leave me. Have a fun crafty week! xxxx

Friday 4 February 2011

Love is in the air!

Hello all! Hope you're all well and being creative this week. I'm quite pleased with myself as I've been working on some non-card projects which was one of my goals this year. I've made a necklace and earring set and a bookmark which I'll be showing you soon and a Bind-It-All project which I'm hoping to complete in the next week. I've also got some sneaky peeks at my craft room to show you. Also been a bit naughty and bought some new goodies (so soon after Christmas as well!) I've been a bit stressed and I'm afraid that sometimes comes out by buying crafty stash!!!! Ooooooops! Haven't photographed them yet but will show you next post.

First up is a Valentine's card for my wonderful hubbie. I adore this cute bear from Elzybells. I coloured him with watercolour pencils, the heart with lyra pencils and outlined with a grey copic. These papers are by American Crafts. The heart is cut with a new Bigz die I just bought to use for some fabric projects I want to do. Am hoping it doesn't look too girlie, I think the use of brown tones down the girly-ness!

I'd like to enter this into:
Papertake- Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp- Love is the air
Paperplay- Stamp It Out
Stamping for the Weekend- Valentine's Day

Crafty stash: Stamps (Elzybells); Copics; Lyra pencils; Watercolour pencils; Papers (American Crafts); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Heart die (Sizzix); Zig zag die (Die-namics); Buttons (Walmart)

My second card is for a friend's birthday. He lives in Canada so I wanted something fairly simple for posting! This Riley stamp is perfect for him as he does love a cup of tea!!! I coloured Riley with copics and paper pieced the polka dot sofa. The paper is by Cloud Nine Designs. The sentiment was a freebie with Craft Stamper magazine.

I'd like to enter this into:
Crafty Pad- something for the boys
ABC- nesties
Charisma Cardz- no embellies
CRAFT- in the roll of a die

Here is a close up of Riley. He looks very comfy doesn't he?

Crafty stash: Stamps (Riley, freebie); Copics; Paper (Cloud Nine Designs); Assorted cardstock; Nesties

Now onto some sneaky peeks at the changes in my craft room. First up shows you new organisation for my embellies....

Second up is...well... see if you can guess.....

Thanks so much for dropping by today. Hope you're all having a fabbie week! xx