Blue Birds for Fathers Day

Hi everyone

Hope you’ve had a good week.  This week I have been trying to put together a picture on Serif Craft Artist that I want transferred onto a large canvas.  It is made up of lots of pictures from our holiday, but at the moment it’s not looking at all how it did in my head, so there’s still much work to be done!

On to the card ... this was done for Father’s Day this year and is my first try with my Spectrum Noir pencils.  Now, me and colouring don’t get on too well, I bought different types of Promarkers, the ordinary type, the brush type and had very limited success.  The trouble was that it always looked like my nieces had coloured it, and in some bad cases looked like my son had coloured it … and he never got past stick men.  So after several attempts I decided that alcohol markers were not for me and I now just use them for colouring in die cut flowers rather than inking them.  I bought one set of Spectrum Noir pencils and had a go with the Odourless Mineral Spirits and it gave me a much better result than I had with Promarkers so I bought some more (they were 3 for 2 in Hobbycraft) had a quick look on You Tube, and here’s the first card.

The image was bought online from the Digital Craft Store and I recognised the font so I added my own sentiment to match, the only other thing on the image is a little bit of white gel pen.  I can't get on the Digital Craft Store site today so I can't credit the artist, but I will update the blog when I can.

I started with a 6x6 card and made a really simple frame and inner frame using Labels 1.  I also cut the sentiment and matt from the smaller Labels 1.  After sticking the frame on top of the image I could see a bit of scribble in the top right hand corner of the card where I had tested the pencils, so I cut out some Tattered Lace leaves from the Sentimental Florals set to disguise it.  All that was left was to stick on the sentiment and it was done.

I am loving my Spectrum Noir pencils but putting them back in the tins and opening and shutting the tins while colouring is really inconvenient.  After looking online for a relatively inexpensive storage method for 120 pencils, I found the Derwent Carry All, which will store all the pencils as well as the paper stumps and the OMS.  Also, I have bought a little jar to put the OMS in (with a bit of sponge at the bottom) and covered it in glitter and gilding flakes.  I had to buy half a dozen of the little glass screw top jars, so if anyone wants one of the five spares, send me an email and I will pop them in the post.

  

The blooper on the card this week was the scribble in the top right corner of the card under the leaves … can you spot it?

Have a lovely crafty week and thanks for reading.