Less Is More

Hellooooooo again!!  Today I thought I'd share one of the cards I created last year using products by Crafter's Companion.

This cute little Party Paws character was coloured using Spectrum Noir pens and the background was just a piece of Centura Pearl cardstock embossed with an Embossalicious Baubles folder with a little Shabby White embossing enamel sprinkled along the base of the panel.

A very clean and simple card.

Brusho and a DT Call

Oh my goodness!!!!  I really cannot believe how long it has been since I last posted!!  Personally I blame my laptop - I was just getting into the swing of things of posting again and it conked out!!

I've now got a replacement but I've been really busy creating stuff - for the last couple of  months I've been busy with designing some stuff back for Craft Stamper - actually I have an article in this months magazine using a JOFY stamp set and the fabulous Spectrum Noir blendable pencils from Crafter's Companion. Personally I haven't seen the magazine yet but I've heard that it is in there!!

Last Saturday I was at The Craft Barn demonstrating with the fantastic Brusho paints.  They are a watercolour powder like no other - the effects you can get with these with no effort at all are just amazing!!  Love, love, LOVE them - I'll be back at The Craft Barn in March demoing them again and then I have a class there using them later on in the month.

Here's a taster of one of the most simple things you can do with them -

Literally just sprinkle the Emerald Green paint down one side of the panel - spritz the watercolour powder with water and then stamp some imagery. Easy!!

The stamps are from the Bold Sprigs stamp set by Stampendous.  Quick cards here I come!!

I've loads more card samples to show you using these amazing paints but I'll save them for some more blog posts!!

Meanwhile I must tell you that Crafter's Companion have just issued a Design Team Call - you can find out all about it here.

I'll be back again very soon to show you some card samples that I've created with one of Jofy's latest stamp releases!!  I was SO excited to be asked - you can find her latest stamp designs over on Jo's blog.

Toodles...............................!!!

Party Paws

Are you impressed with me being back again SO soon - lol!!  Thought I would pop on and post another card before my laptop dies on me!! So without further ado here it is.......

This was created using one of the Party Paws rubber stamps along with some papers printed out from the Party Paws Christmas CD Rom and coloured with both Spectrum Noir pens and pencils.  The trees are a Die'sire die. All from Crafter's Companion.

Here's a different view of it so that you can see that it slots behind the small fir tree to create the 3D front. Once again I liberally sprinkled Shabby White embossing enamel (Stampendous) and used Stormy Sky distress ink to add some shadowing to the trees.

 

And here's the other 'side view' of the card.

Spectrum Noir pencils

I have had the priviledge of being able to play around with Spectrum Noir pencils since they were released earlier this year and I can honestly say that I absolutely love them!!! The pigment within the pencils is really rich and you are able to achieve a wonderful smooth blend with these gorgeous wax based pencils.  My current favourite way of colouring is to colour with my Spectrum Noir pens first and then add more depth and dimension to the image with the pencils.

However the pencils create great results on their own too.  This is one of the cards that I created for a class that I taught at The Craft Barn last month using the pencils onto textured Core-dinations cardstock. Even though I was colouring onto green textured card you are still able to achieve a rich vibrant result with them - this was created just using the pencils on their own without blending solution.  The white accents on the flowers are from a white gel pen.

Currently there is a fantastic Four Day Deal on Create and Craft where you can buy the whole set of these pencils (all 5 sets) at a ridiculous price. Do tune is as Leann has been showing some different techniques with them and I for one am definitely going to try the technique with the gesso as I just loved that!!

Below is a photo showing the difference the pencils can make when using them over alcohol markers.  The panda's hat on the right was coloured very roughly with my pink Spectrum Noir markers and the panda's hat on the left shows not only how you can smooth out your colouring by adding pink pencils over the top but also how much depth you can achieve to your colouring.  And yes you can use these pencils over the top of any alcohol marker :).

 

So if any of you have been thinking about giving the Spectrum Noir pencils a go and haven't dipped your toe into the water this deal is most definitely worth checking out!!  I honestly and truly absolutely LOVE mine :).

Scruffy Little Cat - Ashleigh

Been sooooooooooooooo busy with creating cards that I just haven't had the time to post anything for ages so I thought I'd make up for it now by posting a few different looking cards that I recently created for The Craft Barn's Extravaganza Weekend using just one of the new stamp releases by Crafter's Companion from the Scruffy Little Cat range called Ashleigh.  So here goes........

 Papers are from the Vintage Spring paper pad by Maja Designs.

A closer look at the colouring which was achieved using Spectrum Noir pens and pencils which I am just loving!!  As most of you know I've always been a Copic girl but I can honestly say that I am loving the new generation Spectrum Noir pens - I haven't put any of the interchangable brush tips into mine yet but am achieving a good blend just with the bullet tip.

 

 

This is my take on a clean and simple card using this image - again coloured using Spectrum Noir pens and pencils with Pumice Stone Distress ink for the background around Ashleigh.

 

Another simple card using just the Grand Labels Four die from Spellbinders to give a different feel to the card. Papers again from the Vintage Spring paper pad.

 

A closer look at the colouring again - I used the same colours as the clean and simple card - mainly warm greys and golden browns from the Spectrum Noir range.

I have a class coming up at The Craft Barn at the end of July featuring how to colour these sort of images using Spectrum Noir pens and pencils. If anyone is interested click here for more details :)