Recently I had the pleasure of meeting some relatives during our EPIC ROAD TRIP 2015 (said in my best echoey announcer voice) and we stayed in our new family's home. The hostess had a different theme for every room and her bedroom's theme was lighthouses and I thought, "I can work with this!"
Isn't this perfect?! I knew I had to gather up some nautical twine and I started with The Twinery's new Firecraker Twine and went from there:
To beef up the Firecracker twine I added Maraschino and Midnight Blue on either side.
(And of course the hostess had the perfect prop for my photo!)
The stamp is Tiddly Ink's Light My Life
I was asked by the lovely team at Paper Crafters Library to make a project for their blog and today is the big day!
I shot a video tutorial you can check it out here:
Hello there, friends! As you may have noticed my posting has been sparse, and for good reason: I am on another epic road trip!!!
This trip has been especially exciting because my son has just met his biological father for the first time. His "dad" and I were very close once (obviously) but because he lives in SF Bay area and I live in Canada/China, we just never saw each other. It has gone so much better than I could have ever hoped and they are getting along so well. I hope we can visit again soon.. We are currently in the Bay area and will soon be travelling north up the Oregon coast. I am so excited!!
Anyway... If you've ever tried to craft on the road, it's harder than it seems. I have a bunch of my stuff with me, but still - I AM TIRED!!! In fact, I went to the ER today because of high blood pressure and disgusting swelling in my ankles. Thank goodness I got some pills and am feeling better, but travelling is HARD!
So needless to say, I haven't done all of the crafting I set out to do, but I've made some things, lol...
Take a look at this card I made for this week's Tiddy Inks Challenge:
Anyway... If you've ever tried to craft on the road, it's harder than it seems. I have a bunch of my stuff with me, but still - I AM TIRED!!! In fact, I went to the ER today because of high blood pressure and disgusting swelling in my ankles. Thank goodness I got some pills and am feeling better, but travelling is HARD!
So needless to say, I haven't done all of the crafting I set out to do, but I've made some things, lol...
Take a look at this card I made for this week's Tiddy Inks Challenge:
I only brought 50 Copic markers with me so my colours are somewhat limited, but I really love this image so it was fun. I want all of my colours to bump it up a notch, but really, she's a cutie regardless!!
I've got a couple more projects up my sleeve so I will see you again soon!
Chances are, if you’ve been around The Twinery much, you’ve come across our fabulous Caribbean twines.
Today our design team is going to take you on a Caribbean adventure – in the form of a blog hop. There will be a variety of projects being shared…just hop along! You should have arrived here from Jennifer Cuthbertson!
As you may know, I am primarily a cardmaker and twine is my go-to embellishment when I'm finishing a card. It's not bulky like a ribbon, and it comes in so many colours and varieties that I always find something to match...
I usually wrap the twine around the card a few times so the colour stands out, but look at how perfectly it goes with the papers... love it!!
Here is the hop list:
Tifany DeGough
Amy Crockett
Jeanne Jachna
DoBea Alberts
Anita Mulcahey
Jennifer Cuthbertson
Tobi Crawford <--- You are here
Amy Crockett
Jeanne Jachna
DoBea Alberts
Anita Mulcahey
Jennifer Cuthbertson
Tobi Crawford <--- You are here
Denise Hahn<--- This is your next stop!
Melyssa ConnollyWe love a good giveaway…and we wouldn’t want to have such a fun hop without giving you the chance to win some twine for yourself…and we’re choosing THREE winners! That’s right, three of you can win the jackpot this weekend!!!
Each winner gets: 1 Striped Caribbean Spool, 1 Solid Caribbean Spool, 1 Striped Rainbow Sampler Pack + 1 Solid Rainbow Sampler Pack
All week at the Technique Tuesday blog the designers are playing with the new Big Timber alpha sets.. Here's my card:
I brushed watercolors onto a panel of watercolor paper. Then I stamped letters with the Big Timber Outline Lowercase stamp set on top. I stamped unevenly and let the letters overlap. If you look really close you'll see I even added a little more watercolor to the spots where the letters overlapped.
I completed the sentiment with stamps from the Favorite Things and Planner - Essentials stamp set.
Well my dear ol' Dad is turning 65 and we drove half-way across Canada to celebrate it with him! My Dad is a "car guy" in every sense of the word so I found this stamp (Fathers Day - Vintage Truck) from Tiddly Inks and coloured it up:
I think he'll love it!
I am entering this in this week's Simon Says Monday challenge: Anything Goes!
My friend Maria requested some cards with ballet dancers and I was doubtful I had a stamp set with me in China - but I was wrong!! I had an old There She Goes set and it worked perfectly!!
Check 'em out:
and inverted colours:
If you are looking at the twine and wondering what it is, well.... It's a new twine!!!!!!!
This weeks challenge at the Tiddly Inks blog is "anything goes" so I thought I would try water coloring with a white outline. It's not always an exact science so you never know how it's going to turn out, but it's a really fun process so why not?!
I used a combination of Prima watercolor pencils and Sakura paints with a water brush to get this look.
I think when you're trying this technique it's important to have highlights and low lights since the stamped image isn't very clear or visible on its own.
You can see where I tried to make the mermaid hair have lots of dimension and I did that by allowing the watercolor paints to dry completely before adding another layer- that way the paints don't have time to blend too much and you get more definition.
Did you know that Tiddly Inks Stamps sometimes come in photopolymer stamps as well as digital stamps? Well they do and that's how I stamped today's image! It's a really great option for those of us who like to watercolor!
This post is coming to you from Canada!!
It is SOOOOOO good to be home! The jet lag kicked my butt for a few days but I think I'm mostly back to normal and ready to settle into my summer vacation... This summer is going to be crazy as we embark on another epic road trip, but I am also looking forward to a little down-time too...
I brought a few essentials with me so I can stay crafty during my longer visits (like the one we're having now) and I will be sharing sporadically throughout the next two months..
This watercoloured beauty is June's Greenhouse Society stamp set:
I embossed with white EP and used my Kureake watercolours to colour it in...
I love watercolours for their perfectly imperfect finish...
Thanks for stopping by and talk to you soon!
I complain about this endlessly on Facbook (I'm getting tired of it myself) but have I told you how much the internet sucks here in China?? There's The Great Firewall here and that means the blocking of pretty much all western websites.. It's pretty widespread. So that means for any expat in China to have contact with the rest of the world we must have a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that hides our location. But guess what? It slows down an already slow internet and that's bad news for uploading, downloading, posting to blogs etc...
Why am I telling you this?
Well... I know that since I've moved here my posting has slowed down.
I don't comment on posts anymore (blogs almost never fully load).
I am late... Often...
This post was supposed to be up Tuesday but I tried for 24 hours to post it and then the internet ate it.. So without further adieu, here's my card!!!!!
At the Tiddly Inks blog we had a "Gothic" challenge and this Betty Belfry image spoke to my inner goth. ( I may or may not have been a goth in high school... lol)
I used a combination of Copics and Spectrum Noir markers to get a nice variety of grey families. Spectrum Noir has a family called Green Grey that's quite unique. I used it on her dress and hat:
You can see the contrast of her dress and her hair (which was coloured with the Cool Grey Copics) and made the undertones really come through...
Thanks for stopping by!
My friend Danielle designed this cute little set of birthday grumps by Taylored Expressions and I thought it would be perfect for those people in my life that just don't like birthdays. (Crazy people, I tell you!! What's not to like??!!)
Once I got the image coloured I got to work deciding which twine to use. Normally I grab some different colours and nestle them next to the paper/image like this and decide if it looks right:
Then, I play around with how I'm going to use it on the card.. Yes, I could tie it in a bow, but sometimes I like to live on the edge!! hahaha...
And here's the card all put together:
The Twinery Twine used:
I love butterflies.
If you added up embellishments and stamps that had butterflies in them, they would easily outnumber everything else in my collection...
I used the new die from Technique Tuesday called Happy Butterfly.
I created the background with Faber-Castell Gelatos on watercolour paper. I sprayed the colours with a little water and used a damp babywipe to blend and push the colours around.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hello all! It's time fun new challenge at the Tiddly Inks Blog!! ...this time we thought we would go with something SUPER!! there are so many super hero's in the store that are way too cute to miss a whole post for!! the next challenge is...
Super Power!
Grab your favourite Tiddly Inks stamp or digital image and think along the lines of..
Images/stamps of the supers!! ,
super hero themed papers/ embellies!
Images/stamps of the supers!! ,
super hero themed papers/ embellies!
(**remember...We love to see any new creation, a card, 3D project, journal page etc
but you must use a Tiddly Inks stamp or image to be eligible for the prize**)
I coloured this pup to look like our Bandit:
It's a lot easier colouring an animal image when you have some reference!
And because I love a good sketch, the layout is from this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch:
Thanks for stopping by!
The Columbine - Greenhouse Society stamp set is on sale now on TechniqueTuesday.com and after finally getting the last few Copic markers to complete the set (purples... my nemesis) I wanted to play!
After colouring I added some shadows with my General's Chalk Pencils and blending stump for some 3-D magic!
Thanks for stopping by!
Copics used: BV08, V17, 15, 12, 000 / G46, 43, YG61
Papers: My Mind's Eye
Hello everyone! Are you ready for a unique NON challenge? We thought it would be fun to through a sketch challenge into the mix because, who doesn't love a sketch?? They are my personal favourite kind of challenge because it takes away so many decision-making steps, lol... And I'm lazy, haha.. Pull out your patterned papers and your favourite image and this one will be a snap!
I made this series of cards a few weeks ago because I am just heading into my school's performance of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown that I've been teaching/directing since January. My students are all Chinese and ESL, but they are doing an incredible job and I made these cards to give to
them as gifts because they all love Snoopy so much...
Here's the sketch in graphic form if you prefer!
I made two more using the sketch because... why not?!
Head over to the Naughty Or Nice blog to check out the challenge!
Hiya! Today I am sharing my first-ever Easel Card. I am not one to make shaped cards but this week's Tiddly Ink Challenge is to try out the easel card, so what the heck?!?
Isn't this a sweet image? It's called Wedding Bells and when you purchase the stamp you get two different versions: one with a veil and one without. I obviously used the one without and that way it could be wedding, anniversary or just love!
Supplies:
Papers: My Minds Eye, Teresa Collins, Bazzill Cardshoppe
Other: MME Sequins, Papertrey Ink ribbon, Copic markers. SRM sticker
Hi there!
It's been a heck of a week over here in Tobi-land but sitting down for some coloring therapy was just what I needed.
It turns out that flying a dog home in cargo or in baggage is an incredibly costly endeavor, and of course there's a healthy amount of paperwork involved too... But we want to bring our Chinese rescue dog to Canada and give him a "forever home" so we're trying!
Today on the Tiddly Inks blog the DT is sharing our weekly "makes."
Here is my card featuring Scooting By Wryn.
I downloaded a colour chart for Spectrum Noir markers and colored it in, so I thought I would get to know them better by using them on this card vs. my Copics. I do notice a difference in a number of ways, the colour organization being the biggest difference. I NEEDED the colour chart because the markers aren't organized into light-to-dark families like Copics, but it's something that I'm getting used to!
That's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!
I made a pretty watercolored card with the brand-new:
I stamped the image in Versamark and embossed with white EP. To make the dots stand out I added Ranger White Enamel (like glossary accents, except white!).
Supplies
Watercolours: Kuretake
Papers: My Mind's Eye
The other week I applied to be on the Tiddly Inks design team and to my pleasure I was selected. The images are superbly illustrated and will be a real challenge for my colouring skills so i'm really looking forward to the next 4 months!
Here's my card featuring a newly released image called "Love You Mostest":
I love to colour Christy's images because they challenge me to see the shadows and highlights and attempt to accentuate them with markers/chalk pencils...
For example. the folds on the dress and the man's suit were added by selective shading.. it's fun to play around with images like this because each time you do it you can make different choices!
Other information:
Sketch is from Mojo Monday Sketch 396
Patterned Paper: MME Fancy That
Colouring Mediums: Copic Markers, General's Chalk Pastel Pencil
Accessories: Fancy That sequins, Prima flower
