Hello friends! Check out this fun card and bookmark set. The neat thing how I blended the colored pencils on the bookmarks, not with stinky solvents but with baby oil!
Not only does it work but it is quicker and uses less pigment than blending with dry pencils. See how in today’s video tutorial:
I hope you give this a try, it will work with any regular wax or oil based pencils, even the inexpensive children’s brands. Have a great night and til next time happy crafting!
Hello friends! I recently mentioned that I had put all of my pastel pencils, watercolor crayons and colored pencils back in the tins they came in. They were previously in a pen rack I picked up at a scrapbook store for $5 when it was closing and I liked having them all out within reach but I got a really nice bar stool from my sister for Christmas so now I like to sit at my high table and work and I can place the tins on my shelf behind me, I have a heater under the table as I explained in my craftroom winter mode video. Also I wanted them to be portable in case I want work elsewhere, like say upstairs by the fire. All of my pencils had tins except for my Prismacolors, I got my first set of 60 when I was 5 (my art teacher insisted) and replaced used up ones through the years then got a 144 set 15 years ago and as they would get used up I’d replace them as well. I’d say I have about 175 pencils. So I made a plan and asked my hubby to make it:
Want to see it in action, have a look:
Now, I’m not a woodworker but I did measure my box and noted the sizes and materials for you here, I hope it is helpful, if the measurements are odd it could be due to sanding or using up what was on hand. The removable dividers are 1/4″ plywood while the top and bottom are 1/4″ Masonite, I’m pretty sure you could use all plywood or all Masonite. I love the Masonite for the lid because it make a really great surface to color on, talk about portable!
Use this a guide to design your own. I have some room to grow but if I was going to travel with this I’d put some bubble wrap in ant empty spaces so the pencils would not bounce around in there. Tomorrow I will share a tour of my craft room so you can see how I store other stuff! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and til next time happy crafting!
Hello friends! I have been making it a point to dust off old supplies that have been in my stash for a while. I bought these prismacolor Artstix before my son was born (about 12 years ago!) I think when we have babies we develop a temporary amnesia of our life before kids because I had not touched them since. I honestly think I forgot I had them! Here is a painting of a bird of paradise I made with them:
And, I did a video while a painted it, I figured that if I had forgotten how to use them and the picture was horrible I would not have to upload it. But I DID like it and it reminded me why I also bought a larger set that I also found but have not yet opened! Good grief, can you imagine having these glorious little sticks of color and not using them!?! Don’t worry if you don’t have these ArtStix, which BTW are just Prismacolor Pencils without the wood, because you can follow along with colored pencils, oil pastels, pastels, watercolor crayons or heck, even Crayolas.
I also did some random mark making and doodling, it is a great way to get to know the media without the pressure of making something pretty. Have a look:
If you have never tried colored pencils or pastels on colored paper before give it a whirl, it looks great! You can see how the same range of colors looks so different on the green, brown and black papers I used.
So, what supplies are YOU dying to dig out and try again? Whatever you pick make sure you have fun, be kind to yourself and your efforts and give the inner judge the day off! You will be glad you did. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Howdy friends! I spent the day in my studio, it was lovely and not once did I think of my van with the dead battery sitting in my driveway LOL! I was a creative machine today, I played with colored pencils, filmed 3 new videos (you can see them on my Youtube channel) and finished knitting a pair of very ugly mittens. Well, maybe they are not that ugly, the yarn was beautiful, the pattern was lovely so the wild card in that equation was me. I’m hoping they look better in the morning, if not there will be a rigorous session of steam blocking and embellishing, either way there is a new thick and toasty pair for the mitten drawer regardless of their looks LOL! Tonight I am going to share one of the videos I filmed today, freehand sketching on a book page with colored pencils, have a look and follow along!
As I mentioned in the video I used Prismacolor pencils (my favorite) but you can really use whatever kind you (or your kids) have on hand. If you are looking for an inexpensive brand of pencils I recommend Prang and they are widely available. Have a great night folks and til next time happy crafting!
OK, I’m not a quilter, I don’t have that kind of patience but I’d heard that some quilters used Inktense pencils on their quilts so I had to have a go at it! I also really wanted to try it because for Christmas I gave one of my best friends a small tin of inktense pencils and she is a talented quilter and seamstress so I wanted to make sure it worked well before I told her about using them on fabric. Well, I really like the results on my craft-fair tool apron. What do you think?
Supplies:
Inktense pencils by Derwent
Textile medium (or any acrylic sealer like mod-podge)
a firm paint brush
a foam brush
black acrylic paint or fabric paint
bold clear stamps
An iron or heat gun for heat setting fabric
some natural fabric to stamp on
a spray bottle of water and also a bucket of water to clean brushes in.
Directions
Stamp designs with black acrylic paint, heat set.
color with pencils
spritz with water and apply textile medium to lock colors
let dry and heat set.
Watch the video for helpful hints and full tutorial! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Happy Friday! I spent a lovey day with my good friend Kathy today, we crafted Christmas gifts, drank tea and gabbed a lot! (really it’s mostly about the gabbing when we get together!) You will have to wait until later to see what I made but tonight I wanted to share some watercolor pencil art with you:
The above painting I did with my new Derwent Graphitint pencils. They were an early Christmas gift to myself (I found a heck of a sale!) and I decided to open them live on camera and paint something. Here you will see how I created the above painting:
I really liked the colors of the pencils but I noticed that they looked much different wet than dry and I could not really tell what the color I was coloring with was going to look like so I made a color swatch of the colors in the set. It was so handy that I decided to do the same for the other 2 sets of Derwent watercolor pencils I have. If you have watercolor pencils you should take the time to make a hand color chart, in the next video I explain how and why to do it:
Have fun with your materials and get to know them. You can make color charts of all your media. For traditional colored pencils or pastels you might swatch them out on grey as they are opaque or make a chart on black and one on white. You will certainly know more about your supplies if you do this! That’s it from this droopy girl tonight, thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my USA peeps! Today I have a super quick, easy, last-minute idea for your supper table. The supplies I used today are from around the house and from Papermart.
I am always running around last-minute. That’s why I love the idea of letting kids help out. A flower frog on the table with crayons of colored pencils in it is great for keeping people busy while waiting for the food!
The kids can make these shipping tag place-cards, they are pretty decorations and make a cute keepsake bookmark too.
A roll of burlap mesh makes a reusable table runner!
I hope you have a happy safe holiday and even if you did not have a chance to use these ideas today you can try them out at your next dinner party! Happy crafting!
Boy oh boy, am I ready for spring! I am using flowers everywhere and when I saw an advertisement for Basic Grey’s new loopy felt flowers I had to see if I could make them myself. How did I do?
They are fun, easy and only take seconds. All you need is craft store felt sheets, you know, the .25 cent kind and a pair of scissors and a dob of glue. Honestly, they cost about 2 cents each to make so why not give it a try. Watch the short video to see how:
Here are the written instructions: Fold a 1.5″ x9″ strip of felt in half the long way. cut slits every 1/8″ (you can use fringe scissors to speed things up) then roll up the strip and secure with hot glue. You can cut leaves from green felt and add them if you wish. If you want a flower with a round center just use a 1/2″x4″ strip of felt and roll that up into a coil then attach the folded fringed piece and roll as before. Easy peasy!
More tips!!!
I loved the background paper I made the other day, so much that I did not want to cover it up so I stamped a magnolia collage stamp on top. Here are some tips for stamping on pattern paper
1. Color the image with regular wax-based colored pencils (like Prismacolor or Crayola) the colors, especially the light ones, are opaque and will block out the pattern underneath. Color firmly to blend.
2. Frame the image by using a reverse mask. I used Post-It notes to make a frame around my stamped image and sponged (a make-up wedge works great!)on brown ink. When you remove the post it note you have a pretty frame just like magic and you can still see parts of your beautiful paper!
3. This probably goes without saying BUT, use a dark ink on a patterned background so it will show up
One last tip!
Mix and match your frame and sentiment stamps for snazzy new looks! I have had this oval frame from Rubber Stampede for years, I love how well it pairs up with the Stampin Up stamps I just got this month. That oldie is not moldy anymore!
That’s all for today, I am having friends over to craft tonight so I must clean up the crap..er craft room! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
I am in love with the book The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern! I finished it Tuesday night and started reading it again…it was that good! I highly recommend it, I don’t even know what genre it is, it is very dreamy and transcendent with a truly original plot and I don’t want to tell you about it because I don’t want to spoil anything. I even ordered the audio book so I could listen to it read to me! Anyway, it has inspired me in my work this week. I designed a printable party kit called Midnight Dinner Party and I used one of the printable sheets to make this card:
I was inspired by the character “Kiko”, the Asian contortionist when I created this card. The Geisha Stamp I used is by Art Neko, the sentiment is from MSE!, all other stamps are from Glitz Designs. I used my Inktense watercolor pencils to color the kimono, notice how much more vivid the colors are with this brand of pencils compared to the traditional colored pencils I used on my teacher valentines and my sock monkey card from earlier this week. Both the Inktense and the regular colored pencils are by the Derwent company but they are quite different.
So, this book influenced me so much while I was working this week. I was compelled to design a black and white party set called Midnight Dinner Party. All the elements in my kit are black and white so it is cheap to print and if you do not like black and white you can print it out on colored cardstock. I would be pretty on cream for a wedding, or hot pink for a sweet 16 or with accents of red for a “Night Circus Midnight Dinner” like I did here. Please note that no text or wording comes in this kit (but couldn’t help the mock-up with the characters names!) you can customize that easily yourself and use this kit time and time again!
If you find yourself inspired enough by The Night Circus to create something leave a link to it, I’d love to see it! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
But I DID like it and it reminded me why I also bought a larger set that I also found but have not yet opened! Good grief, can you imagine having these glorious little sticks of color and not using them!?! Don’t worry if you don’t have these ArtStix, which BTW are just Prismacolor Pencils without the wood, because you can follow along with colored pencils, oil pastels, pastels, watercolor crayons or heck, even Crayolas.
