My prize arrives at last!

After much anticipation my prize of $500 worth of crafty goodness has arrived, delivered in person no less!!

I can't wait to try everything out!!! Keep your eyes peeled for my newest creations!!

Craft mess!

How do I work under these conditions! It always starts out as a perfectly clean craft table, then I make a little mess and then more and then BAM! No where to even cut a piece of paper!

I was making a few cards for selling at a market up where my Mum lives, Nhulunbuy. She also makes gorgeous cards to sell. But these three I made quickly from inspiration off Pinterest. I love Pinterest! I used Stampin Up stamps for these cards.

I made this too, but I'm not really taken with it. You know how it is, some you love, some you don't! I don't know why it didn't work, I used Prima Fairy Belle, which is beautiful paper! How could I muck it up!!

I like this better. I think the colours go better and I used Maja Design, Autumn Basics and Pion, Alma's Sewing Room and there is absolutely no way I can go wrong with those!

And you will notice no trimming my photos, all the glory of my mess is included! I have yet to receive my winnings 😢 from Australian Simply Cards but as soon as I do I will share! Have a great weekend!

Not my favourite

Well I finished Marie Antoinette but I didn't like what I did so I'm not going to go through how I coloured her! I will give it another go, colouring clothes can be so tricky! I put Ranger liquid pearls on as pearls but I'm not happy with that either!!!

Oh well! 

I'm also having creative block right now so I haven't made anything all week, how sad. I will Pinterest for inspiration :)

I'm a winner!!!!

My favourite card making mag, Australian Simply Cards,

has an annual "Card Maker Of the Year" competition and I am one of 9 runners up !!!

Here are my cards in the mag,

But they look better in my photos!!

This is my graphic 45 'Time to Celebrate'

Creation, with its own little pocket.

Card number two using one of my favourite stamps, Flower Charm, from Penny Black.

And the third is faux leather on the outside 

And steam punk on the inside.

I know I'm not changing the world but I'm very proud and excited to be a runner up and when I get my prize, $500 worth of craft, I will show you all!!!

New favourite copic colour combo!!

It's in the dress! RV 91, RV93, RV95. Beautiful colours that blend perfectly. I'm sure a few more of my coloured pics will have these gorgeous dusky purple colours.

I thought I would try entering the Aurora Wings challenge ,for the first time, which has a current theme of flowers. I loved colouring this Romanza digi image from Aurora Wings.

The die in the background is from ultimate crafts and is called Careless and Free from the Jadene collection.

 Glad I could have a quick craft session today, time gets filled by so many things.

Till next time!

Marie Antoinette, hair with three Es!

Ok so now some hair for our Aurora Wings digi. The colours I used are

I start by colouring with the E11, just drawing the highlight lines. It really helps me to draw this first so I know where not to colour.

Next I take E35 and colour the hair, leaving the highlights, which I added to the top curls too, cause I forgot the first time!! The highlights are only a small space so don't be afraid to get in close with your medium colour. When I colour I will generally follow the lines of the image, or in this case, the hair. 

The next step is with E47. Using this I add the darker shading, going around the edges and where I think shadow might go like under curls. You need to make sure you can still see a bit of the other colours under your shading.

Now a lot of people will say don't blend hair, but it really depends on the style and look you are after. I love blending and so I did that next, using the lightest colour, E11. This just means I went all over the whole hair with the pen, making it nice and wet too.

So now I go back over with my middle shade, E35 drawing from the darker colour, but making sure I leave in the thin highlights.

And then I reshade the deeper shadows with E47. It comes up richer because the paper is a little wet. This is also when I pull a few dark strands out  into the middle colour, not many though!

Lastly I go over the highlights with my colourless blender, 0, just to make it look a little like a shine.

And it's done . I hope this has helped you!!

Look out for finishing her off soon!

I colour skin with only 2 copics!

Someone asked how I colour with copics so I thought I would give a tutorial a go! I use very simple techniques and I am 

NO EXPERT!!!!!

But it's fun.

My favourite fair skin colour is done using E50 and E20. I use both Ciao copics and Sketch. Someone one said that they didn't stock Ciaos because they were for children! Firstly how rude, and secondly not true! They work perfectly. And like any art, there is no right or wrong way, it's your way! The image I am colouring is from Aurora Wings, Marie Antoinette.

So I first begin with my base, E50. I's not a large are and I fill it in quickly so it doesn't leave streaks. It is only in larger areas that I will do continuous circles with the pen to prevent colouring in marks, but as I always go over with quite a few layers I don't tend to have this issue. I'm also leaving the shoulders bare as i think it should be clothes not skin, but that is up to you!

Just a basic colouring of all skin. Then I add E21 for shading. I shade under the hair line, around the eyes, under the nose and lip, the cheek line, ears, neck and in creases and some edges.

Looks dodgy I know! So I go over all the skin and saturate it with my E50.

As you can see the lines are blended in a bit more. But it's still not enough! So I repeat with the shading and blending another two times, or more, until I'm happy. 

I will use my E50 last and I will go over the shaded parts ONLY to give them one last blend and it leaves a tiny highlight on the parts I don't go over. I really love to saturate my paper and it does affect the end result as you shade and blend over wet paper. (It has to be blending paper though! And I have never had it disintegrate under my deluge of ink!)

And so that's how I do skin in 2 colours. I will add a little more facial colour after I have done the rest. I leave this last because I like to do eyes, lips and cheeks in colours that will be complemented by the rest of the image. Have a great day all! Please feel free to ask any questions!!

I'm alive and colouring!

How long has it been? Blogging is something I do to share my fun and I having been enjoying my Copic markers recently!! They are so awesome and there are no substitutes!!! Don't be fooled, if you are going to spend money on alcohol markers spend it on Copics. I have been colouring digi stamps from aurora wings. They are gorgeous and fun to colour 😊

2015 and still crafting!

Hello to all in Internet land! 

I hope that your new year has started nicely 😊

I have been enjoying the holiday season with an awesome visit from my mum over Christmas, time with friends and family, a nice study break and some home decorating. When my bedroom is all finished I will blog about it! And I want to let you all know that I got an overall score of 86 in my last unit and look forward to studying police and law from March.

I have had time to make cards, although it is never enough! These cards have been made with Prima Marketing Cigar Box patterned paper and Spellbinders Elegant Label 4 dies. And don't forget the Just Rite Grateful Heart stamps. Enjoy and see you next time.

New Paper to play with!

I bought a new paper pad, Stationer's Desk by Prima Marketing. It has lovely rich red roses, I just love it! Here a two cards I've made with this paper.

The first was a simple card that only took a few minutes and the second took a little longer as it takes time to place each piece perfectly! 

I also learnt a new trick with cutting and embossing dies thanks to my Mum! See the difference!

The first one is just cut as normal through my Big Shot, and the next one I used a rubber embossing mat, I still can't believe how gorgeous it looks! I borrowed the die and can't remember what brand it is, but I will find out! Thanks for looking, have a lovely day :)

Hello again

So I have been super busy as I completed my forth uni unit recently! This week has been very busy with catching up on all the things I ignored!! But I made time for cards on Friday using my latest aquisition, floral key paper stack by heartfelt creations. The paper makes beautiful cards easy, except when you make your own flowers like in this first card, that took hours!!!

The rest were quite quick as I just layered paper and flowers :)

Thanks for looking, I'm hoping more cards will be created very soon!

A little spare time....

This week I have been super busy completing an assignment, still not finished though... It's due on Friday! These holidays have found me unmotivated to make cards, even though I got some lovely craft stuff for Christmas! But I finally took some time to make man cards, which are no where near as fun as girly cards but still need to be made!!

Hopefully I will get more motivation and make some more 😄 but it's not likely to be this week! 

Hope you had a Merry Christmas

It has been a while! As usual! But I finally put the blog app on my iPad so it should be simple to post a blog entry more often :)

I had a lovely Christmas with time with friends and lots of presents! I got a $100 give voucher from my husband for Arnold's scrapbook store which I look forward to spending :)

These are my latest creations,I still enjoy my dylusions  ink sprays, they are so bright and pretty.  

                                                 

I still enjoy my dylusions  ink sprays, they are so bright and pretty. I made lots of Christmas cards too but I won't be showing them today. These vintage cards are what I've made in my desire to do anything BUT Christmas!!!!!! Have a great new year everyone!