Colouring - Dr Seuss

I enjoy colouring in all the books I have, but this is the only one that has me chuckling while doing so. It is a delight to study all these goofy characters up close as the pencil colours the shapes and details. One simply sees so much more than when you are just reading a story book.

We found this one at our local Costco, and decided to pick it up just because it is so goofy and it makes for cheap enough giggles.

This was the first page I tried, and soon enough realised that wet media and this paper and not good friends ... but the Crayola pencils play very nicely with the smooth white paper.

This took a really long time to do and the night sky was not quite what I had planned, but many chuckles later and it is still a fun, bright page.

Instead of just adding a load of colour on Horton's page, I decided to spill just a small amount of green onto the left page, with all the attention on Horton.

A landscape of quirky houses...

More pages to come sometime soon...

Thinking of You - Card

I liked this image from Lili of The Valley -  and thought it would work well for an all purpose card.
I took the colour inspiration from some older designer paper I have in my collection and coloured the image with Derwent WC pencils. I find if I leave the digital ink jet images to dry for a few days the ink takes a small amount of water just fine with no, or a very small amount of bleeding.

I used an embossing folder to add interest to the front panel of the easel card as well as a die cut, and sentiment (an older ProvoCraft stamp) and a little bit of ribbon.

I also used dies to cut curved edges on the designer paper strips, on the inside and outside of the card. I added foam under the paper on the front strip to create an edge for the easel part to push against.

I stamped the top half of the card front with Versamark ink and a Friskars rose stamp. I like the way the Versamark ink looks on the kraft paper.

All in all a quick and easy card to make as a reminder to a dear friend that she is in my thoughts.

Colouring - Escape To Shakespeare's World

One more colouring book I treated myself to last year was 'Escape To Shakespeare's World' by Good Wives and Warriors.  

I really like the smaller size of these books and the paper takes wet media and softer pencils well.

I really notice more and more that I have a serious colour problem : unless I preselect and physically remove a selection of colours, I will end up using every colour in the box.

Guaranteed.

I used Inktense, Derwent Water Colour pencils, Neocolor pencils (water soluble), and Crayola pencils for all the images here. Crayolas work really well on this paper

I thought it would be nice to have the ROMEO look like it was carved stone, so I drew in some extra lines to get dimension and added cracks and dots for a stoney surface. I also added black ink in the background. I like how the black background makes the colours pop.

A seascape, especially if it has a boat/ship in...well that is always one of the first pictures I will colour. This is such a great drawing!

Now for the unicorn I had thought I would add greens, blues and purples in the background all gently flowing into one another. This is the basic base coat done...and then I liked it so much like this that I decided to leave it. I may still come back and add more colour if I feel like it at a later stage, but for now it's staying like this.

As with all the other books that I have, I have multiple pages on the go at all times it seems. I'll have more to post another time!

Family History - a Photo Book

Long time no hear from me!

I did not plan to take a 3 month break, but life got busy and computers gave me trouble....but I'm back!

And today I'm back with another page in the Family History Photo Book. This book has been in the making for many years, and I think by the time I get the pages uploaded for printing, I'll be looking at more than one volume. For now I'm just working away at the pictures. I think I have all the pictures collected in one spot by now though. What a job! But interesting too - no doubt about that!

It's been really interesting to read some of the novels written by a niece of mine, relating the stories of some of our ancestors. In this photograph I recognise some of the people mentioned in the latest book in the series. That is really very special!

I used Cathy Krenek's 'Time For Wine' kit for my page. One can never have too many flowers and when the picture is 'all girl' I have to restrain myself from adding copious amounts of ribbons, lace and flowers! Right now this is available as a grabbag, I'm sure that will change next week. I'll be back to fix broken links by then...

Time For Wine

The Bundle is available HERE  and the kit alone HERE. All the bundle pieces are available separately in Cathy's store