Sunflowers & Dragonflies » Tips & Tricks

Cuttlebug Flower Link

Beth Norman — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:19:31 +0000

A long-time reader sent me this link for creating Cuttlebug flowers. The video comes from the Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada scrapbooking store called Carousel Stamps. Their video can be seen here.

Thank you for sharing this link, Darla.

Get Organized for the New Year

Beth Norman — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:22:09 +0000

Photo used with permission by Wonderfully Complex

Happy New Year! Or is it? This is the time of year that we are well into our New Years Resolutions and are already at our breaking point having fun. Plans for an exciting new year of resolutions may have come and gone, but it’s still not too late to keep things from running amok running smooth in your stamp/scrap room. I am keen to organize my embarrassing mess where no one is allowed to enter untidy room.

Keeping a tidy room frees up precious time that could otherwise be spent stamping and scrapbooking.

This is the year I am going to get things in order. Are you in?

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Purge. Have you heard of the 10 second rule? I learned it at work years ago. Put something in your hand and within 10 seconds it is tossed or dealt with. You’re not even allowed to put it aside. Toss it or put it away. If you haven’t used it in three years, throw it away. I just got rid of all the designer paper I purchased and haven’t used in the past three years.

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Swap. What you think is outdated and used, may not be. Why not get together with a girlfriend and see what you can share with each other.

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Put it away. Period.

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Storage. Keep items stashed in bins. See-through bins work best. I store all my rubber stamps, finished cards, ribbon, etc., in bins. Having everything in drawers makes things easy.

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More Storage. Don’t be a stranger to three-ring binders. Store unmounted foam back rubber stamps, that use mounting cushion, onto special storage sheets. An alternative is to store your unmounted stamps in plastic ATC sheets. My Stamping Bella stamps fit into the ATC sheets so well, and I’m able to keep them all together in one three-ring binder.

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Desk top organizers. Don’t think that you have to buy expensive desk-top organizers, hit the hardware store to buy a nuts and bolts drawer. This unit takes up little space and houses items such a flowers, brads, eyelits, dies, inchies, etc.

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Label. Purchase a label-maker and label your bins. This not only helps you to finish things quickly, but also forces you to keep all your “like” items together. For example, my stamps are stored by company and mounted vs unmounted. If you have Stampn’ Up! sets, label the box and set them on their sides.

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These tips should get you started. If you have a tip to share, please let me know.

21 Ways You Can Save Yourself Money

Beth Norman — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:59:50 +0000

Have you ever read something and thought, “why didn’t I think of that?” Well today I put a list together for you just so you can say that–LOL. Here we go:

Use an old mouse pad to use as the base when you use your hole poker
Coffee filters are great when using glitter, flocking and embossing powder. Remaining product can easily be poured back into the container.
Misplaced your hole poker? Solid wood toothpicks can be used to punch holes for brads. Push pens and metal pins to hold your turkey together work well
Gift card holders make good bone folders
Kitchen tin foil can be embossed as well as the tin sealing on coffee cans
Before throwing out an old shirt, remove the buttons for your next project
Use a cookie sheet with wax paper for a quick work station (we all know that we run out of usable space. How does that happen?)
Sharpen scissors with sandpaper
Soak paint brushes in fabric softener
Reuse well washed meat trays and coffee lids for pallets
Reuse cereal boxes to be used as chipboard
Use free on-line colouring book pages to act as a digital design
110 lb white paper from Staples is excellent cardstock. Take it to your local print shop to have them quarter it for you
Buy barbie doll clothes and accessories for your cards and scrapbook layouts. This acts as Jolee’s Boutique products
Check out the children’s section at the dollar store; often they have small sponge stamps that would would perfect for you
Hold swap meets with your friends. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure
Decorate a child’s over-sized puzzle piece which will act as a cool embellishment
Turn paper bags into books
Flea Markets make excellent play dates where you can find old music sheets, ledger sheets, lace, buttons, and more
Hardware stores. Did I say hardware stores? I came home sorry I didn’t shop hardware stores first. Many times the same product will be available at the hardware store, as at a scrapbook store. The hardware store prices are cheaper (ie. wire at the hardware store vs. beading wire at the scrapbook/beading/rubberstamp store)
Check the dollar store. Often a product available in a craft store will be packaged differently, and at a reduced cost, at the dollar store (at the time of writing this, I purchased crystal-like large flourishes for $1 each, and small bead jewels/gems for $1

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That’s a start. If you can think of anything else, please let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

Tutorial Tuesday each week. Do you have a favourite?

Have you Caught the (writers-block) Bug?

Beth Norman — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:59:51 +0000

Have you caught the bug? You know, the one that takes away your enthusiasm for studio time, or even a lack of direction for inspiration? Well, there’s help on it’s way.

Today I thought it would be fun to share a number of ways to jump start your next project.

Top 10 sources of inspiration

1. Walk away from your studio. It sounds simple enough, but sometimes we get caught up in the “I must create” mode. Everyone needs a break from being creative. Take a walk, or grab a cup of coffee, then come back to where you left off. Sometimes a small break is all you need to get your mojo back. Leave your project and come back to it the next morning for a fresh view.

2. Turn off the TV and turn on the tunes. TV can be distracting. Turn on your favourite music, dance a little jig, and sing along while colouring and cutting. Trust me, it’s fun.

3. Turn to a sketch site. Sketches are designed to jump start your mojo. Flip the sketch, turn it around, do whatever you want with it to make it your own. Here are five sketch sites to jump start your next project:

Splitcoast Stampers
Card Positioning Sketches
Pencil Lines
Sketches: Creatively Yours
Stampin’ When I can. See daily web posted sketches.

4. Grab one of your favourite cards that you have laying around in your studio. What do you like about it? Is it the layout, the colours or even the image? Create a new card by changing out the colours, using new designer paper or Cuttlebug template, or even a new image.

5. Digital Stamps are the rage. Tired of all your stamps? Never mind that you have 100+ stamps; everyone can use a new one. Have you thought of going digi? Digis are inexpensive and a good way of adding a new image to your collection at a low cost. Here are five popular digi sites for you to check out:

6. Have you had something on your mind in the last week? Why not blog about it. You can match up your blog post with a photo at one of the many free I stock photo sites. Sometimes one needs to get away from the studio table, and just write about what is on your mind.
7. Look around you for inspiration. Look at the clothes in your closet. Notice a colour palate? Look at magazines for colour inspiration or for layout ideas.

8. Challenges are popular. No matter what style you like to do, there is a challenge site for you:

9. Need colour inspiration? Here are some fantastic sites:

My Create Ink – Hurray, a new SU site has been opened by the original owner of the old site, and now her brother is aboard too.
DeGraeve is a powerful site that allows you to upload a photo and creates a colour palate
COLOURlovers has lots of colour palates to pick from.
Color Scheme Designer allows you to click on the wheel to see colour combinations. Click on the very top of the page (to the left) to pick what colour style you are looking for. Pretty cool.

10. 5 popular blogs

Not only do I love to share, but I loe to learn from others. Please let me know what you liked, and what I missed. I would love to visit the sites you send me too. Who knows, maybe I’ll blog about it.

Weekly tutorials–subscribe today

Blending Tip

Beth Norman — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:17:01 +0000

This past week Stephanie and I spent a wonderful evening scrapbooking. Heaven knows I need to get caught up. Don’t you feel that way too?

When I was embellishing my layout, I complained that I didn’t have the right colour of butterfly, so Stephanie showed me a cool tip. Here it is: scribble the dark marker on a stamp block and then rub the light marker in the dark marker. You will see that I started to colour my butterfly at the top, and blended my marker right down to the bottom so the colour would look well blended. I repeated the process with my other wing.

You can see Stephanie’s gorgeous Mexico layout she did while I was there.

For more tips and tutorials please see my pages up top. Don’t miss another tip or tutorial, subscribe today.

Colour Me Beautiful

Beth Norman — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:13:02 +0000

Today on Tutorial Tuesday, I will be providing you with a tutorial I did way back in 2008, as a refresher on colour, since I have been posting about the colour wheel. There are lots of pictures full of information and inspiration focusing on colouring with Prismacolor pencil crayons. These pencil crayons provide a professional finish when blended with Odorless Mineral Spirits, also known as Gamsol or Odorless Turpenoid. This Odorless Mineral Spirit (OMS) can be found at your local craft and hobby store.

For more information on Prismacolor pencil crayons you can read a recent post of mine entitled An Introduction to Prismacolor Pencil Crayon. For more information on the colour wheel you can read Introduction to the Colour Wheel.

As I colour, I blend after each area is coloured. For purpose of this tutorial, I am colouring the entire image before I blend. I hope you enjoy this tutorial.

Supplies:
Prismacolour Pencil Crayons
Odourless Mineral Spirits/Gamsol/Odorless Terponoid
Tortillions (paper sticks)
Permanent Ink Pad (such as VersaMark or Versafine)

Colour your image, leaving areas free of pencil crayon. Here you can see I added pink to the flesh tone, to give the cheek a pink tint.

The hat is coloured gold. Notice the large area left uncoloured. This allows even a lighter area of gold once it has been blended.

To add a 3-D look to an image, darker shades are used, and this is called “shadowing” or “shading.” To add a shadow, imagine where an item is blocked by the sun. In this photo, the sun hits the tip of the hat, leaving the area around the rim in the shadow. A shadow will also sit around the ears. When two lines butt up against each other I often colour that area darker, thus creating a depth as if the item is indented.

When I colour an image, I chose at least two areas that will be coloured using two different colours. Once again, this adds interest to the image. Here, I chose blue as the main colour for the pants. The blue was coloured in a random pattern, leaving uncoloured areas for reasons explained next.

One item that I often refer to is the colour wheel. I decided that I would like the pants to contain two different colours. Wondering what would be the best choice, I looked to see what complemented the colour blue. There were three colours to choose from: red, gold/brown and yellow. I chose gold.

Next, the gold is coloured in a random pattern, leaving some areas free of colour. When the pants are blended, the joining of the two colours, along with the uncoloured areas, will reveal a lovely variety of colour.

Like the pants, the boots were coloured with two colours–a light green and a dark green. The jacket was coloured, leaving areas of white so that the colour is lighter in the bottom area. Notice how the vest is left uncoloured on the bottom as well. As I go along, I add darker areas in the areas that need shadows. If you do not have a deeper shade of the colour you are using, then use brown in the shadows. When blended, it will look lovely.

Now it is time to colour the fish. I like to add as much interest to my image as I can, so once again I pulled out my colour wheel to see what colour would work well. Because the moon is yellow, I put that colour at the top of my wheel. There were three lovely colours to choose, and I picked purple because the colour was not in the image at all. Just like decorating a house, splashes of different colours is visually appealing.

Now it is time to blend my image. Here you can see the OMS I am working with. It was chosen for no particular reason. Any OMS is good. Gamsol may be just a little bit better.

These are paper tortillions made specifically for blending. A starter kit is very handy to have because it comes with several shapes and sizes of paper tips, and it also comes with a hand held pad of sand paper. The sand paper is used to sand the colour off of the colour and to sharpen the points. I have many shapes and sizes of tortillions so I do not have to sand a lot.

The larger the area to be blended, the larger the tip I use.

In small areas I use small tips. This tip was used in the vest area, including along the blue vest edge.

There is a lot of blending in this image. Notice the white area on the hat that was specifically left without a dark colour. Can’t you imagine the sun hitting that area? Under the shirt you can see how I added brown to the top of the pants because I felt it was in a shadowed area. There are no mistakes with colouring and blending. Experiment, have fun and play.

You are now ready to finish your card.

Work Wonders with the Colour Wheel

Beth Norman — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:49:16 +0000

Learning about the colour wheel can be scary for some of you, but let me reassure you that it really isn’t hard to learn and understand. In my introduction about Learning About the Colour Wheel you learned about the colour categories: monochromatic, analogous, complimentary, split complimentary and triadic. Today we will take a more relaxed look at the colour wheel.

Did you know that you see your favourite colour combinations every day? Here are some examples:

Clothing Take a look in your closet. Think about the outfits that you put together. This is a good example of colour coordinating. Imagine what you like to wear and pick out the colours on the colour wheel. Chances are they fit within the colour categories mentioned in my introduction.
Paint on the Walls Chances are your walls fit within one of the colour categories. If you are a little afraid of colour, your walls will be monochromatic. If you love colour like me, my walls are split complimentary and triadic. Thinking about painting? Choose your curtains and bedding before you paint. Pick your wall colour next, by picking one of the colours in your curtains or bedding.
Magazines What pages attract you? Look at the advertising pages. Are the ones that you are attracted to have your favourite colours? Compare that page to the colour wheel and see what colour category it fits into. This is a great exercise for you to think about in your leisure.
Gardens City parks and gardens such as Niagara Falls, is another great example of colour wheel use. Have you ever noticed how you are atracted to these gardens? Great colour knowledge and use really work well together.
Designer Paper Rubberstampers love designer paper. Pick out a paper and you are sure to find it fits within one of the colour wheel categories. Pick a colour and use it as your main colour in your matt and in your coloured image. If you can create the main colour in your technique, even better. (ie, Technique Junkie Newsletter offers a wide number of techniques in their subscriber newsletter).

Wasn’t that fun? Colour wheel combinations are right under your nose every day, and you didn’t know it.

Homework

Look in your closet and pick out your favourite cloths and look at the colour wheel. What colour combination does it fit into?
Pick an ad in a magazine and see what colour combination it fits into

In the next post about the colour wheel, we will look at colouring using the colour wheel as a guide.

For more tips and tricks, and tutorials, please visit my pages above

Introduction to the Colour Wheel

Beth Norman — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:29:49 +0000

What is a colour wheel? It is a circle-shaped disc that is divided into 12 sections which displays colour according to their pigments.

Colours are made up of red, yellow, and blue. These colours are known as primary colours because they cannot be created by mixing any other colour. The remainder of the colours on the colour wheel are called secondary because red, yellow and blue are mixed to create these colours.

There are many shades of each colour as you can see above.

Let’s take a closer look at the colour wheel.

Monochrome

Monochrome colour is made up many shades of one colour. One example is the green above. It starts with a cool shade of kaki green and graduates to a very deep kaki. When cardmakers and scrapbookers use monochrome colour, white/cream or black is often added.

Associated Colours or Analogous

Associated Colour consists of colours that are side-by-side on the colour wheel. Associated with the kaki green are gold and blue-green. Normally one chooses a colour as the dominant colour and then uses the associated colour as an accent.

Complimentary

Opposites attract. No, they really do. Take a look at the colour wheel above, and look at the opposing colours. Notice how kaki goes well with the pink-red. This is a bold use of colour, and is my favourite to use.

Split Complimentary

Just as the name says, split complimentary is the use of opposites and the addition of a third colour. The third colour is to the left, or to the right, of the main colour. For example, red-pink and kaki are the chosen main colours, and gold or blue-green would be the third colour if I left the wheel as it is seen in this photo.

Turning the wheel around, pink-red and kaki are the main colours, but this time orange and violet are the chosen colours to use as a split complimentary.

Triadic

Triadic sounds like triangle, right? Looking at the colour wheel above, can you pick out the triangular colours to use? The answer is: kaki, orange and violet. Isn’t this easy?

I’m absolutely in love with this colour wheel that I found on Letter Seals.Com

This colour wheel is non traditional, and perfect for cardmakers and scrapbookers. Why? Because it shows a wide variety of colour combinations. This colour wheel is yummy.

Let’s look closely at the colour wheel again. Notice that each colour is broken up into five colour segments. Each colour wheel can be broken up into as many colour segments as the producer of the wheel chooses. In this case my wheel is produced by Bazzil paper company, so my wheel matches with the colours at the time the wheel was printed. One does not have to purchase Bazzil paper. Case in hand, I use Stampin’ Up paper yet I can follow along on this colour wheel.

Getting back to the segments of colour, let’s look at the lightest shade on the wheel. If I choose the lightest blue, the best colour choice to compliment my light blue would be the lightest shade of green, violet or gold. In another example, if I choose the third from the top blue, the complimentary colour choice would be the third from the top of the green, violet and gold. Are you catching on? I knew you would.

Isn’t colour grand?!

Did you read my other posts?

Work Wonders with the Colour Wheel

Colour Wheel

For a list of more tips and tricks, please see my page above

Weekly tutorials can be found on two pages listed at the top of my blog

Prismacolor Coloured Pencil

Beth Norman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:46:45 +0000

In a world where Copic marker sales are soaring, you may ask why I continue to love a coloured pencil aka pencil crayon.Â Linda Heavens of Heavens Created This is a prime example of how beautiful Copic markers work.Â Linda makes me believe I could do beautiful work with Copics, but in the end, coloured pencil wins.Â Why?Â Coloured pencil takes me back to my childhood where I would spend countless hours colouring.Â Child by heart, I get an overwhelming sense of peace and relaxation when I take the time to enjoy colouring with coloured pencil.

If you are following my Coloured Pencil free on-line class, you will need to have 6-10 Prismacolor coloured pencils.Â Prismacolour sets may be cost prohibitive, but there is a way around that.Â Simply visit your local art supply store (ie. Bear Creek Studio in Sarnia, Dick Blick) to select from a showcase of single coloured pencils.Â If you do not have Prismacolor on hand, any brand will do, but it will be necessary to purchase a colourless blender pencil (purchase at local art store, Michael, Hobby Lobby).

What makes Prismacolor so special?

Prismacolor coloured pencils are wax-based and blend with ease.Â The bright series has 132 colours, and lightfast has 48 colours.

Coloured Pencil Galleries

Prismacolor website gallery

Colored Pencil Society of America 2009 winners

Colored Pencil Society of America 2008 winners

Monopoly board

Bouquet that resembles a photo rather than coloured pencil

Shiny gold chairs

Alastair Lockwood

Colour Pencil Resources

Scribble

Coloured Pencil book list

Amazon book list

Coloured Pencil Blogs

Nicole Caulfield

Siti Nuriati (beautiful Lady Diana artwork)

Holly Bedrosian portrait artist

Deborah Friedman

Gamsol/Odorless Mineral Spirits

In my coloured photo above, I used Prismacolor coloured pencil with Gamsol.Â Gamsol is an odorless form of turpentine.Â A little goes a long way, and your bottle will last forever.Â You can find this product in the art supply section at Hobby Lobby or Michaels, among the oil paint tubes and watercolour tubes.Â Look for odorless mineral spirits if you do not see Gamsol.Â Local art stores carry this as well.

To blend your colour you require tortillions, which are tightly wound paper sharpened to a point.Â You can purchase a starter kit which will have everything you need to get you started.Â If you don’t see a starter kit, have sandpaper on hand.Â Stores will have sandpaper hand-held blocks in the coloured pencil section.Â If you chose to buy your sandpaper at a hardware store, buy a very fine grit.Â Sandpaper is used to sharpen your point and to take off colour in you don’t have enough tortillions on hand.

Don’t miss out on my free on-line coloured pencil class, subscribe today

S&D Challenge 8: Sweet Tooth

Beth Norman — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:53:57 +0000

This is a very exciting week for Sunflowers & Dragonflies Creative Designs.Â Want to know why?Â We are showcasing cupcake stamps drawn by our new artist, Marisa of Elegant Bloggery.Â When I came across her cupcakes I asked her to make some for us.Â I am sure you will love these just as much as me.Â Â All week I will showcase more projects and cards with these delightful cupcakes.

Cupcakes are stamped out on watercolour paper and watercoloured with Tombow and Stampin’ Up.

The surprises don’t stop there.Â Next week we will showcase another stamp line by another artist.Â They are darling and will win your hearts.Â I know they won mine

Both stamp lines will become available to purchase on my new website which will be unveiled on September 19th.

*Â *Â * *

Please join us and show off your talent.Â Show us a card or project with anything sweet.Â You are welcome to use any product. Of course weâ€™d prefer that you use images by Sunflowers and Dragonflies Creative Designs, but feel free to use other images if you donâ€™t have one of ours.Â This weekâ€™s prize is a set of cupcake stamps and sentiments.

Please post a direct link to your challenge projectÂ (with a link back to the challenge) from either your blog or an online gallery so we can view it, no later than Saturday afternoon. Â If you upload to an online gallery, please use the keyword S&D8.

Please check out the challenge projects below from each of our DT members and click on their blog links to find details about each specific project.

Kim created a sweet tooth house

Beth showcases her love for chocolate

Jennifer created a heavenly sugar-coated delight for you

This week’s prize

A complete set of our cupcakes stamps and sentiments