Roll Call

Hey guys happy Tuesday! I'm back from the land of creative blocks I guess because I have a very adorable tag for you guys! Maybe its the rain, but I feel great today so I decided to enter this krafty cutie in this week's FFF over at The Greeting Farm, Shaped Cards or Tags! using an adorable little miss from my recently acquired Roll Call Kit(r). I won't keep you in suspense, here she is:

Maria (Roll Call Kit)

This gal is just adorable! I decided to do something different this time, instead of using prismas on kraft I did most of my coloring with my copic markers and then went back in with a cream prisma color pencil and added highlights. I stamped everything on this tag with the Asian Themed 8x10 Fiskars clear stamp set in Rich Cocoa Memento ink and a sentiment from SOG's Geisha Kaylee clear stamp set. Once everything was colored, I fussy cut little Maria and adhered her to the tag with my ATG gun. To give the impression of depth, I outlined Maria with my W2 copic marker. To finish the look, I added clear wink of stella to all the flowers, branches and the tutu of Maria's dress. I also used a scrap of sheer ribbon from my stash to match the shimmer from the wink of stella. This card came together fairly quickly and I actually like the way the copics on kraft look. My friend says the tag looks "brown sugary" I'm not sure what that meant but it sounded good! I suspect she may have been a bit hungry lol! She reads my blog faithfully just about every day so I may be in trouble for that comment ^.^ ah well, happy Tuesday my crafty pals!

-Krys

Getting Krafty

Ha! You like the title? Gives a little too much away? Kinda vague? Good! At least I know it caught your attention even if it wasn't the most clever ^.~  As I mentioned yesterday, TGF's Farm Fresh Challenge this week is Use Pencils to Color, so today I have another cutie from their super secret stamp club collection colored up on kraft for you guys

SSSC Fairest

Today's prisma on craft card is another simple and clean layout with a border drawn by yours truly, impressive huh? I kid, in the past I've had a problem doodling on my cards because well to be honest I'm just not that great at it. I'm also not the best at the whole clean and simple card layout so this week has been a major out-of-my-comfort-zone week for me. While I'm at it I'll also admit that prismas are not my favorite medium to work with unless its adding fine detail on images I already colored with copics, there I said it! Whew, do I feel better ^.^  In keeping with the princesses and prismas, I decided to ink up Fairest, who was the first stamp released in the super secret stamp club. I actually did not take part and so I had to buy this exclusive stamp later at the exclusive release price of $12, holy cow right? Problem was, I'm very particular about my stamps and I don't often like surprises on something I already paid for, I like to know what I'm getting before I spend money. I thought I was a smart cookie till I saw the cuties being released and fell in love! I ended up buying 3 of them anyway, several months later and at a much higher cost. Better believe I signed up this time around! Now I can't wait to get my first SSSC stamp from this subscription, I'm so excited and since I already paid for them, I don't have to worry about not having the money to spare to buy them later! What have you stepped out of your comfort zone for lately?

Princesses, Pencils, and Kraft, Oh My!

Hi guys! Hope you had an awesome father's day weekend and all got a chance to do something special for the men-folk in your lives, be they Father, Son, Brother, Grandfather, Uncle, or just a good friend! My hubby defanitly got more than a little appreciation shown. In fact it was downright good ol' fashioned spoilery! Our living room now hosts a 60" flatscreen tv which he is quite proud to say, may be too heavy for the floating shelf it sits on... Men. I just hope it doesn't fall. I won't complain though, a complete surprise to me, he was kind enough to replenish my cardstock supply out of the kindness of his heart, lucky me, don't I have a sweetie?! Anyway I digress, what better activity is there than bonding with the kiddos on Father's Day right? Well he thought so and I didn't argue so off to the park they went and up to the craft room I went, where I came up with my card for this week's FFF Challenge over at The Greeting Farm, Use Pencils to Color.

SSSC Tress

I colored up the lovely Tress from TGF's Super Secret Stamp Club with my Prisma Color pencils on kraft cardstock. Whenever I use Prismas, I usually opt for kraft over white cardstock because there's no need to use an OMS (odorless mineral spirit) to blend the colors. With kraft its all about layering and patience. After all the hard work it took to get this image just the way I wanted, I decided to go with a CAS layout and let the image shine without any embellishments (which was incredibly tough for me!) I doodled a border around the edge and used a few of my small stamps to add a little umph but other than that I left Ms Tress as the focal point. I was so pleased with my restraint that I'm considering making another one using another one of the SSSC exclusives tomorrow! How do you guys prefer to use your pencils? What type of paper works best?

-Krys

A 'SMASH' ing Alteration

Hi bloggers, its been a while, I'm still trying to turn those stubborn lemons into something worth the wait but its slow going. Meanwhile, I'd been working on a project that has taken me quite a while to complete. I'm proud to say, it has been completed and I couldn't be more excited to show and tell, but first, a back story!

A few months ago I started seeing these K & Co 'Smash Journals' everywhere (along with DIY tutorials on how to make your own). I loved the tutorials because when you can DIY and save money its always a great feeling on you and your pockets! And lets face it, at roughly 14.99 a book its a bit steep so why not do it yourself? why? I'll tell you why, Michaels sent me a '50% off one regular priced item' coupon in the mail and it was burning a hole in my pocket :). Anywho, I selected and purchased the one with the pink binding, Pretty Style Folio, got home, and waited for some great creative revelation to hit me... Weeks later I was still waiting. I tried journaling in it, doodling, treating it like a scrapbook, but nothing. No great work of art or much of anything else came about and I started to give up hope until one day I found the problem. It was boring, plain, and downright ordinary looking! How could I be inspired when the book itself was so uninspiring. I immediately began to design the perfect cover and to do this I had to take it in stages. A lot of hard work and many hours went into this project but it was definitely a labor of love and I'd do it again!

(BEFORE)

 

 

(AFTER)

Lolli Anya, Cheeky Geeky, Queen Bean, Alice Bean, C.C. Madden, Cheshire Bean, C.C. Friday Night, C.C. Lula

Sentiments: Anya Strolls, Anya Lifts, O&A My Favorite Things

Cheeky Geeky, Queen Bean, Alice Bean, C.C. Madden

Cheeky Geeky, Queen Bean, Alice Bean, C.C. Madden, Cheshire Bean

Lolli Anya, C.C. Lula, Cheeky Geeky, Cheshire Bean

Sentiments: Anya Strolls, Anya Lifts

Lolli Anya, Cheeky Geeky, C.C. Lula, C.C. Friday Night

C.C. Madden & Lolli Anya

 

As you can see, I had lots of fun layering and distressing and stamping and coloring to bring this book cover to life! I used quite a few of the TGF stamps in my arsenal, and actually have about 5 or 6 more colored up that were unfortunately too big to make the cover but will still be used for future projects, promise! I used Tim Holtz Walnut Stain to distress the edges of several sheets of paper from DCWV as well as a sheet of translucent vellum with script. I added a few pages from an old book also distressed with Walnut Stain as well as Antique Linen. Each of the girlies were stamped around a sheet of kraft colored cardstock and each took about an hour to color. I love the way prismas look on kraft cardstock so I tried to experiment with skin tones as well as outfit colors and was very happy with the outcome. Dark skin is not the easiest to render on kraft, found that out the hard way. But the key is layering, much like working with copics. Once I figured that out it was (semi) smooth sailing from there! Everything was held on and sealed with my homemade mod podge, which I found a 'recipe' for on Pintrest. Honestly, can you really call it a recipe if there's only 2 ingredients? oh well, the point is, whatever you call it, it works GREAT! I'll never buy the real thing again! To finish off the book I created several charms to fit my personality, connected a few jump rings and made a hanging charm for the binding of my book (gotta love that shrinky dink!). I plan to enter my altered SMASH folio in the following challenges:

 

The Greeting Farm Retro Fresh Challenge- Layers!

The Greeting Farm FFF Challenge- School's Out

Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes

 

Until next time,

-Krys