Card - New Home

For a 'Congratulations on Your New Home' card, I like to make something that  reflects a bit of the character or surroundings of the new house.

Getting the image for the 'cottage' was a good place to start and I found this one over at TiddlyInks

and coloured it using water colours and some coloured pencil.

I wanted a card that would be easy to display, but would also fold flat for international mailing and decided on a Z-fold, which also allows me to create a bit of a  'garden' area. It is such an easy design to make and creates great depth and areas for added decorations.

The rest of the images are all old Provocraft stamps that I've had for many years, and keep pulling out of the drawers from time to time. The woodgrain on the inserts is a Heidi Swapp clear stamp bought at Michaels.

The blue sky and green grass was done using alcohol sprays. I really like the effect the inks create and it is super easy to get really nice results. The only drawback being that it does bleed through the paper and card stock like any alcohol based product will.

The recipients loved the card and I had a lot of fun making it. All that's left to do now is go and visit so I can see the new home for myself!

Colouring - Magical Jungle

Another one of Johanna Bashford's books - Magical Jungle is a great collection of images to colour.

The paper takes wet media well so I've been using the Inktense pencils, Derwent WC pencils and NeoColors quite extensively. 

Some areas in the double spread have pencil layered over the water media. I was concerned that the paper is too saturated to take more water media

This beautiful pattern is done with only pencils. I had thought of adding a background colour when I first started, but I think in the end the white is the best colour for that.

I like the paper in this book. It was the first one to be published using the paper developed specifically for her books. I like the weight of it, the way it takes the media I enjoy using and also the white that is not quite a bright white. It works well as a background colour.