Cock your hat - angles are attitude.

Hello all!
         Starting off with a quote from Frank Sinatra as our new challenge from the colouring DT at The Outlawz is taking inspiration from the upcoming "Make a Hat" day - who knew there was such a day???
      Anyway I thought the Frankie quote was very apt for the image I used for my card as you shall see.  Before we get there though, I just want to mention that we are being sponsored by the fabulous Vera Lane Studio this month so find some time to join our challenge and you could be the lucky winner!

      I tied in my card with the current challenge from Make It Colourful which is 'Two tone monochromatic with abstract background' - what a title!!  Their challenges always encourage you to stretch your colouring skills and I've missed entering them for a few months as it took a while to get settled back into things after returning to the UK and becoming gainfully employed again!  Anyway I made some time to think about my card design before printing the images and decided I wanted to use MIC tap dancing man in 3 different poses, using grey for the shadowy figures, blending it into a sepia type brown for the front man.

             I achieved this threesome by using Photoshop Elements and opening 3 layers with a different figure on each and then overlaying them - the digis are PNG files so this makes it a whole lot easier. Sorry if I'm speaking gobbledegook for some of you but there are plenty of great tutorials explaining how to do this a lot better than I can.   The abstract background was created by masking all the images (I printed them onto cheap paper and fussy cut around them) and then stamping with a patterned rubber stamp from my stash.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut 2 cardstock frames and added some tickets for an extra bit of bada-bing!

      Here's a close up of the fancy footwork dudes!

   This was fun to do and although not quite as dramatic as the fabulous two tone creations from the Make It Colourful DT, it still follows the guidelines and I'm pretty happy with the end result :)

        I would also like to enter this for the challenges at Chocolate, Coffee & cards, Creative Corner, Left of Centre.

                     Thanks for stopping by - it would be great if you could check out the fab creations from the rest of The Outlawz Colour DT, especially as we have a new member joining us.  You can find Laine's blog here and just click on their names for the rest of the team - Carla , Penny and Kathi.

Creative colouring with Make it Crafty

Hello all!
        Finally got around to making a card for the latest challenge over at Make it Colourful which is all about 'creative colouring'.  You really should check out the amazing transformations from the crazy talented DT - they're so very inspiring and a teensy bit daunting if I'm honest.  Anyway, I decided to give it a go as I do like how these challenges really do challenge you!  I know there's a place for the Anything Goes challenges but I do like to push myself every now and then - it's good for you, so I'm told.

                              I decided to 'change' the freebie digi that was being offered on the Facebook MIC page and I had an idea that a touch of Steampunk would work.  I don't have the option of printing in greyscale on my (cheap) printer so I had to stick to the printed lines of the original digi but I added some of my own lines with a thin black marker and then set to colouring him with my Copics.

    I suppose it would make sense to show you the original digi so you can compare that with my creatively coloured version -  you can find him here.

             Entering this into the challenges at A Creative Romance, Left of Center, Wags n Whiskers, 613 Avenue Create and Glitter n Sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by!

End of the month challenge at The Outlawz

Hello all,
             our regular end of the month challenge with the Alcohol Markers DT at The Outlawz is here again - each month we have an Anything Goes with a Christmas twist option, which gives you the chance to get ahead on those festive cards.
            I used a Make it Crafty digi and tied it in to the easy challlenge at Make it Colourful , which is purple and turquoise, using my Copics for the colouring.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the dotty background, the scalloped edged frame and the sentiment.

                             Also entering this into the challenges at Addicted to Stamps and More, Simon Says Stamp, Crafty Girls and Charisma Cardz.

Thanks for popping in today,

Under the sea

Hello all!
I managed to get 5 minutes away from a painted furniture commission I have been spending all my time on this week, to get this card posted before I completely forgot!  Every month there are 2 different challenges at Make it Colourful - they split them into easy and hard challenges and they really do come up with some original ideas.  This month, the hard challenge is to colour on something other than white cardstock so I decided to try out some vellum.
                  I printed out the very cute Cordelia the mermaid onto the vellum and set to with my Copics.  The first problem I ran into was that Copics do not blend very well on vellum!  You have to do a little bit at a time and if you put down too much ink, you can end up with some nasty inky blotches.  I've seen some people colour on the reverse side of the vellum but my vellum was too thick for this.
                                Anyway, once coloured, I layered the vellum over some patterned cardstock which gave the impression of an underwater scene and used my Silhouette Cameo to cut a seashell frame and some wispy seaweed.  Very "The Little Mermaid", don't you think?

           She looks a bit mottled in the picture but that's the background pattern showing through.  I layered the frame over the vellum as it's always so difficult to stick vellum without the glue or tape showing through.  I did have some special vellum tape but it's somewhere in the black hole that is my half-packed craft room!

                                  Entering this into the challenges at Make it Colourful , Deep Ocean , Through the Craftroom Door , Creative Moments and Addicted to Stamps and More.

Thanks for popping in!

Spring is coming, so they keep saying!

Hello all!
we managed to avoid the predicted snow storm but have still got the cold temperatures and blustery winds today - when will Spring finally arrive in the Garden State???
             Anyway, at least I can pretend it's Spring by joining in with this month's challenges at Make it Colourful, where they have an easy and hard challenge every month to encourage your colouring skills.  This card fits in with both themes - the easy challenge is to colour flowers and trees with a Spring feel and the harder challenge is to make wood look realistic.  I think my tree trunk looks realistic........in a cartoon type of way at least!
       I merged the Tree of Love and Geeky Love digis and the whole scene was coloured using Copics.  I framed it and cut a sentiment using my Cameo to finish it off.  I definitely wanted to keep the layout quick and simple as colouring the scene took hours to do.

       I would like to enter this in to the challenges at Make it Colourful, Crafty Bloggers, Kaboodle Doodles, Marker Pop, Stamp and Create, Fan-tastic Tuesday and Through the Craftroom Door.

Thanks for popping in!

Last Christmas card for 2013?

Hello all!
       I wasn't going to do any more Christmas cards but the latest challenge over at Make it Colourful had me feeling festive for one more time!  There are 2 challenges - 1.) use red and green and 2.) add texture so I decided to combine both and coloured up Scruffy Elf with my Copics.  I tried as best I could to add texture to his clothes by adding some wrinkles and folds..........what do you think?

    I'm also using the Sketch challenge from the Make it Crafty Facebook challenge so 3 for the price of 1!

Also linking up to 613 Avenue Create , Crafty Sentiments, Through the Craft Room Door , Oozak and Addicted to Stamps and More.

Thanks for popping in!

Practice, practice, practise.....

Hello all!
       I've been feeling a bit 'blah' about the whole colouring thing lately so I decided to forget about cards for a while and just focus on the colouring bit and where better to do that than over at the Make it Colourful challenge blog?  Their current challenge is colouring eyes and you should check out the amazing inspiration from the DT over there - Wow, big time!!!
       Anyway once I picked my jaw up from the floor, I decided to give it a go as I figured the practice would be good even if the results may not be.  I used the Melyssa digi and started off with a Halloween style in mind.  I used Copics and a white gel pen for all of these but as usual, I haven't listed the colours ( I'm just not organised enough to remember to do so - I'm very organised in real life but when my artistic side takes over, organisation goes flying out the window!)

    No 1 - Halloween girl

   This was fun to do as the colours are obviously not the usual ones you would pick for a girl's face!  However, I felt the eyes looked a bit flat so I tried again, this time making her into a woodland nymph (that's what happens when you have a glass of Pinot Noir on the go at the same time!)

No. 2 - Woodland Nymph

  A bit happier with her eyes but I still felt there was lots of room for improvement so I decided to do one more and this time I would keep it plain and simple.

No. 3 - the last one (for now)

   I do like the eyes in this one even though they are miles away from the fantastic examples of the DT - more practicing is needed but for now, I'm happy :)

Thanks so much for popping in today!