Archive for July, 2008:
Bandana Technique
This cute card is one of Pat Huntoon’s creations. Pat is the owner of the TECHNIQUE JUNKIE NEWSLETTER
This newsletter is published bi-monthly and is chaulked full of unique and inspiring techniques. This month’s issue includes the bandana technique, as seen in Pat’s card.
I have been asked many times if the newsletter is worth purchasing, and I always respond with a yes. Here is why:
- Six glossy paper issues arrive in your mailbox each year.
- There is a website for subscribers only. Step-by-step photos are provided for each tutorial described in the paper issue.
- With each tutorial on the TJ website, there are cards posted by the Turbo Team members. These cards are unique to the TJ website and cannot be seen anywhere else.
- Techniques are unique to the TJ newsletter. You will not find Pat’s tutorials on my blog.
- With your subscription you will have access to the TJ Yahoo group. This is a very friendly group of ladies who post their creations from recent, and previous, technique issues. There is a lot of inspiration from this group.
I started as a subscriber and now I am a writer and photographer of tutorials. My cards can be seen on the subscriber only website pages.
Come join the TJ community. See you there!
Have you subscribed yet?
Subscribe to the comments for this postEnhance the beauty of your card with the colour wheel
In response to the many e-mails I received regarding the use of the colour wheel, here is some information to get your started. Store bought colour wheels are designed to make life easier for you. The top piece of cardboard has holes cut into them that highlight what colours work well together. My Colour Me Beautiful tutorial describes how I used the colour wheel when I coloured my image.
Associated Colours
These colours are side by side. To pick these colours out, look at the colour wheel and pick out one colour. Now look on either side of the colour you picked. Those three colours are “associated” and work well together.
Different Shades
Using the same colour, but in different shades, work well together. Another name for using this style together is called monochromatic. Look at the colour wheel and choose one colour. Notice the various shades of one colour.
Opposing Colours
Opposites really do attract. This is one of my favorite ways to use colour. Look at one colour on the wheel and then look at the colour directly across from it. This style is one of my favourite when colouring images as seen in Colour Me Beautiful.
Another way to use the colour wheel
If you look at the colour wheel in my Colour Me Beautiful tutorial, you will see that the main colour I chose sits at the top of the wheel. There are three colours highlighted below. The colour wheel tells me that there are three colours that work well with the top colour.
This information should answer your questions. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them for me and I will be happy to help you out. Listed below are some of my favourite links related to colour:
COLOUR RELATED LINKS
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Blog Candy Winner
Congratulations Marja. You are the lucky winner of my blog candy.
http://marjas-scrapfun.blogspot.com/
Tutorial Tuesday: Colour Me Beautiful
Today on Tutorial Tuesday, I will be providing you with 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 Colour Your World with Prismacolour.
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
Odorless Mineral Spirits/Gamsol/Odorless Terponoid
Tortillions (paper sticks)
Permanent Ink Pad (such as VersaMark or Versafine)
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 have an upcoming post related to the use of 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.
Another close-up.
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Blog Candy
Well, it’s not the best photo, but here it is–$30 worth of goodies up for grabs. This is what is included:
- Melissa Frances transfers for the creative side of you
- Bo Bunny rub ons for the elegant side of you
- Hero Arts art flowers in springtime colours
- Hero Arts Season’s Greetings stamp–perfect to decorate your Christmas envelopes
- Hero Arts miniature snowman–perfect for Christmas moo cards, 3 x 3 gift cards, and to decorate your Christmas envelopes or inside of cards
All of this is up for grabs. To qualify for your name to be entered today, please leave me a question concerning card making, or a comment about something you would like to see in one of my upcoming tutorials. Along with your comment, link my blog candy on your blog, and your name will be entered twice.
For everyone who has already left me a comment, or question, thank you. You are more than welcome to enter your name again today. I love interaction with my readers, and have been thrilled with the response over the past several days. Your comments clearly tell me what you are looking for, so over the next couple of weeks, I will be focusing my tutorials on colouring images, with in-depth description of products.
Check out my tips and tricks post from this morning–below this entry. Want more tips? Sign up for your free blog subscription today.
You Too Can Create One Card Every Day
Good morning folks. Today I will have two posts for you. Later today, I will post my blog candy. Until then, enjoy my tips for creating one card per day.
How you too can create one card per day
Today’s card was inspired by a comment I received yesterday. I was asked how I managed to create cards on a daily basis. I couldn’t help but create a card with this image to depict how we are all perceived by our friends and family, and even our blog readers. That comment lead me to think about my creativity process. I work full time, outside the house, and yet I find the time to blog and make cards every day. Let me share my creative process with you:
- My kids are grown and gone. That leaves me a lot of free time–something young families struggle with.
- My Donnie is very understanding of my studio and blog work. He encourages me to give it my all.
- Every day I am alotted two 15 minute breaks, at work, and one 30 minute lunch. That is 60 minutes a day, or 5 hours per week, to use for me. Me, me, me. Rather than leave my office area to walk down to the cafeteria, I sit with my huge Tim Horton thermos that I filled from home in the morning, and I sit in the kitchenette area and make the most of my time by colouring images (I read “ProBlogger” from cover to cover in one week doing this)
- When I have one hour to spare in my studio, I use Odorless Mineral Spirits to blend out my images. After my images are blended, I pull out my Twinkling H2O’s and go to work enhancing the images.
- When I need a card for a particular purpose, like this superwoman for in7stance, I just pulled the completed image off my stack of completed images.
- One of the biggest secrets for me was to let go of that “hoarding” we all do. Don’t even think you can fool me. I know you’re a hoarder too. Why else do we leave packages in the cars until our husbands aren’t around to bring them in? Why else do we say, “what, that? Oh, I’ve had that for ages.” Of course you’ve had it for ages–it’s been in the back of the van for 3 months! By freeing ourselves of the need to hoard, we allow ourselves to use products we have, thus freeing up a lot of time trying to decide what NOT to use. Trying to decide what NOT to use, takes up a lot of time.
- When I am in the mood to play with alcohol inks, I spend two hours creating approximately 20 to 30 backgrounds. I precut each piece of glossy cardstock, so my background is ready to use when I need a cool background in a hurry.
- Create lists. I create long-term and short-term goals and stick to them. Start small. Do just one of my tutorials per month. It is amazing how much one can learn by trying a new technique.
- Create when the mood hits you. If you are like me, you will notice you can create for hours at a time. Take advantage of that time, by telling your husband, or family, that tonight you are going to play in the studio for the night. On Thursdays, I go out for beer and wings with Donnie and our friends, so there is no cooking to do. From the time I get home from work, until the time we walk out the door to go out, I am in my studio creating cards and blogging.
How You Too Can Blog Every Day
I would love to blog every day, but life gets in the way. When I am really behind, you know it. This is how I blog every day:
- When I have a pile of cards to post, I upload them into my gallery and have them on hand when I need to post quickly.
- When I have a lot of time on my hands, I will post up to one week in advance by using the “prepost” feature. For example, I’m leaving for beer and wings in five minutes, and know I won’t have time to post before I leave for work tomorrow at 5:30 a.m, so I am writing this and telling my post to go out tomorrow at 3:00 a.m. When I wasn’t sleeping, I’d post at 5:00 a.m., but I found that preposting is a much more convenient feature.
- If I haven’t posted for a few days, I post blog candy so my readers won’t leave me (and we know we hate to loose readers, eh?!)
- If I don’t have time to create a card, I provide my readers with links that I know they will appreciate and love.
I had a fabulous time putting this post together for you today. My blog candy is still up for grabs. Leave me a question that I can answer for you, or just leave me a comment, and your name will go into the hat. Stay tuned for the blog candy reveal later today.
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Birds of a Feather and blog candy
Birds are the rage right now, and I’m just one of those gals who has to be with the “in” crowd when it comes to bird images. They have been around for a long time in altered books, and now rubber stampers are lov’n them. Want to see a bird in a journal? Peak at my friend Kim’s book. Can you guess what puzzles me about Wordpress today? Well, I’ll tell ya–I can’t figure out how to put my words BESIDE my photos. What does life have to be so confusing?
Here’s a close-up of my images that were coloured with Prismacolor pencil crayons and OMS, and then painted with Twinkling H2O’s. I had a request to do a tutorial with respect to giving your images an extra punch, so I’ll do that soon for you. Leave me a comment and your name will be entered into the draw for blog candy. A picture of the prize will be posted tomorrow.
Thank you for stopping by.
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Tutorial Tuesday news and blog candy
Tutorial Tuesday resumes next week. I am trying to learn Wordpress and didn’t get it mastered in time to post my weekly tutorial. Hopefully the kinks will be out for next week. I notice that you cannot click on the photo to get a close up view of the card.  My mom and sisters are going to be very upset with me. Does anyone have Wordpress experience? I really could use your help–must stay on the good side of family you know–LOL.
In the meantime, let me share this cute Rubbernecker image with you.
Image was coloured with Prismacolor pencil crayons and OMS. Designer paper is Cosmo Cricket. Want a good laugh? Read the link up to Cosmo Cricket and how they got their name here.
Want to join in on some blog candy? Simply tell me what tutorial you would like to see me do. If you can’t think of one, then just leave a comment.  Want to double your chances on winning the big prize? Let me know you subscribed and I’ll add your name into the draw twice.
Don’t miss out on my weekly tutorial–subscribe today. It’s free!
My New Blog is Up and Blog Candy
To celebrate my new blog, I have blog candy to give away. I will draw a name next Monday.   Your name will be entered just by leaving me a comment. If you want your name to be entered twice, all you have to do is to subscribe to my blog either by RSS feed or free e-mail updates–the choice is yours. Please leave me your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you are the winner. If you subscribe, please let me know you did, so I can enter your name twice.
I recently offered blog candy to anyone who created a one layer card. Emilia’s name was drawn. Emilia is from Taiwan and creates wonderful cards. Congratulations Emilia!
Today’s cards were created with Flair What’s Cooking paper and Odd Bird Planet images.
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What’s Cooking?
Hi folks! Here we are at the start of another week. This will be the last week on Blogger for me, as I’m switching over to Word Press with a new look, and I’m so excited!
I’ve been cook’in up some goodies. Do you recognize the recipe box? Click here for my tutorial.
What kitchen is without a grocery list? Why not create a matching post-it note holder. Need a tutorial? Click here for my recent one.
The images are from Odd Bird Planet and you can view them here.
Flair has a cute line of paper called Keep on Cooking. Want a peak at it? Click here. There are coordinating stickers, and I put one on the lid of the recipe box as shown in the photo. The sticker set also came with recipe index words. “Desserts” is shown. I punched out a tab and simply stuck “Desserts” onto the tab.
In this photo you can see that I decorated the post-in note holder with more cooking stickers by placing a sticker on the inside,
Thank you for stopping by. My next post will be on my new site. I will let you know the website when I post.
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