Polychromos

Pencil Poinsettia

Hello there. There is another challenge starting at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The them is anything goes as long as it’s Christmas. I took the opportunity to break-out my Polychromos pencils to colour a Poinsettia stamp:

I do have to apologise for the light on the photo – but we’re in the middle of a lot of high winds and rain, so I’ve had to manage with what I have….. 🙂

I bought this very large poinsettia stamp at a recent craft show, from Sheena Douglass. Now Sheena is someone I have watched and admired for many years – I like her style of stamps, her water-colouring, her designs – I just wish I could emulate even half of what she does.

During the craft show I must have stood and watched her for over an hour, and she has broken out on her own producing a range of stamps, card, and water-colours – a couple of items I have used here.

I began by stamping the image in a red Stazon ink – I wasn’t sure if I was going with water-colours, but in the end I went with the Polychromos pencils. Four or five shades of red to begin with, then realised that the red Stazon gives a good dark impression on the veins of the leaves, so I went with three red colours mainly.

I was considering some green leaves – but love the overall effect of the red…..very much ‘in your face’! This image was die-cut on my Scan’N’Cut – I think I;m getting to grips with it now – it’s still a work in progress, though.

The background is a piece of water-colour card, wet with water, then I dropped some of the green Sheena water-colour ink onto the card – tilted it a little to make it run more, as I wanted a kinda messy background for the poinettia.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set and embossed in silver, and I even added some silver flourishes – from the same stamp set – behind the poinsettia before sticking it to the card.

I do hope you can come and join us for this challenge, and I look forward to seeing your creations in our gallery. 🙂 🙂

Other challenges I shall be entering:

Trimmies Craft Challenge – Christmas

Colour Crazy Challenge – anything goes colouring

Dream Valley Challenges – Hand coloured image

Umbrellas and rain drops

 

Hello again. Here is a card which appears a little darker than my usual, but it is actually quite sparkly if you turn it a little. I’ve tried to capture the effect, but it does look better in ‘real life’.

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I used a Clearly Besotted stamp set, and heat embossed onto black card with silver detail embossing powder. I then used my Polychromos to colour the images in, using 2-3 reds and 2-3 yellows. The black rain drops are from the matching dies for the stamp set, which are cut from Stampin Up black glimmer card, and individually stuck down.

I heat embossed the sentiments from the same stamp set, and added the whole thing to a white base card.

To try and get the glimmer from the rain drops, I had to prop the card against one of my perfume bottle – only because it had a nice image on the lid. Can you tell which perfume it is?

I shall be entering the following challenges:

4 Crafty Chicks – anything goes with twist raining cats and dogs

Inkspirational – photo inspiration

Pinspirational – anything goes

 

 

Simple sparkle

Hello again everyone. I have some time this weekend to do some crafting, and have put together these cards. I started to make these earlier in the week, and finally managed to complete them this morning.

The stamp set is from Uniko, one of their new stamp sets, and this time I have used the bud images from that set. After stamping with Versafine black onyx, I went in with my Polychromos to colour them, and even though they are quite small images, I still managed to give some dimension and blending to the flowers themselves.

I stamped the sentiment in black onyx too, as I like bold sentiments which stand out.

I then took a small piece of green glitter card from Crafters Companion, and die cut a strip from a Catherine Pooler collection I have, adding that for some added extra for a clean and simple piece of sparkle.

I am playing around with ways to photograph my cards, and these images came about as I have been putting my Christmas decorations on my table, and saw that this gorgeous plate – a Christmas present from a very dear friend – was just sat there, with some twig lights around it, looking all pretty……so I placed the cards on it.

I like how these turned out, and may have to keep the set-up for future cards.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

AAA Cards – CAS sparkle

Use Your Stuff – anything goes

QKR Stampede – anything goes

As You Like It – anything goes

Moving along with the times – flowers

 

 

 

 

Polychromos Poinsettia

Hello everyone. Another few cards from playing at the weekend. This time I have been using my Faber-Castell Polychromos. I have never used them before, so again I went searching through the YouTube videos. There are some absolutely amazing creations out there…….and then there are my simple little creations!

I had the idea of colouring a poinsettia flower from watching Yana Smakula recently, and loved how her blue poinsettias turned out. I wanted to try blue, but then turned to other colours, just so I could practice.

The flower stamp if from Which Craft!, bought at their craft show a couple of weeks back. I bought it specifically because it had a lot of open space I could get to colouring, and experimenting.

I stamped the flower several times on black card stock, and embossed with white, copper, and silver. I wanted to see what different they made to the finished project. As you can see, I didn’t just use red. I was playing, and experimenting with blending and shading, so much so that I actually spent a good couple of hours doing these.

I used three colours of the red, yellow, and green, and blended, and layered, and blended again. I’m not sure if it is the right way to do things, but I like how they turned out. I can’t decide which is my favourite, though – what do you think? Which would your favourite be?

(By-the -way – does this hand look creepy or not?)

I shall be entering one of these cards into the following challenges:

The Merry Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Christmas Blog Challenge – Christmas Flowers

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Addicted to Stamps – Anything goes with flowers