Go Team GB !

In honour of tonight's Olympic Games opening ceremony, I thought an appropriately themed card was in order!

So all I am going to say is GOOD LUCK, to all our athletes and lets show the rest the world Just what makes Britain GREAT.

Normal Service is Now Resumed

Well, after being briefly afflicted with Christmas, normal service shall now be resumed!

I have a whole heap of birthdays and things coming up, so got a little busy over the weekend and this is the first of my efforts!

Yet again I have chosen a Krista Smith Digi image from Saturated Canary, I am completely addicted to her images, they are gorgeous and so great to colour, I seem to be able to see someone I know in all the cutie little images.

For this card I wanted something super sophisticated with just a hint of bling! 

As always I chose my papers first, and I have to apologise as I don't know who's papers these are, I also need to add that I used a quickie glue pen and some glamour dust to bling them up!

I continued the black and cream theme inside, and put my Cricut to good use, albeit time consuming I love the effect of the lettering.

So I am guessing you came here to find out what promarkers I used???

Here goes.... Hair:

Almond, Tan, Cinnamon, Cocoa and chestnut.

Face: 

Satin, Oatmeal, Tea Rose and Sunkissed pink.

Bow and Skirt :

Ivory, Vanilla and Sandstone

Bodice and Gloves:

Cool Grey 1-5 and Black.

Thanks for stopping by today, Happy Colouring xx

Nicky x

Oh no its the C word !!

So I have made the first of this years Christmas cards, beating last years 31st of July efforts! You never know one day I may be one of those organised people and start making them in January !

We received our first shipment of Christmas goodies in the shop today and on The mulberry-bush, online.

We just couldn't resist them, so of course one or two bits had to come home with me!

CL252 -Bella in Pot

I've added a tiny little bit of

Glamour Dust.

As it's mid July I don't have any of my Christmas stamps out of storage yet, so had to scrabble around for a greeting in my oddsies box ! Luckily I found this one which I thought was quite appropriate. It was a magazine freebie.

Here's a list of the promarkers  I have used:

Hat:

Red, Crimson, Ruby, Burgundy

Bella:

Warm Grey's 1-4, Sunkissed pink, Blush

Holly:

Pear Green, Pine, Holly

Pots:

Oatmeal, Ginger, Spice, Terracotta, Henna, Cocoa, Walnut, Raw Sienna & Umber!

I have coloured the background with Faded Jeans Distress Ink, I stamped onto a sticky note and masked off the coloured image and the snowy area at the bottom and used an ink blending tool to add the ink.

The background papers are also from Wild Rose Studios, I hope you like Bella as much as we do, further projects will follow, just got to get my head round that word...

Ch******s !!

Happy Colouring

Nicky x

Creative Stamping magazine

Well, a couple of months ago I was asked if I would make a couple of cards for Creative Stamping magazine, They sent me stamps, I sent them samples.

And then I heard nothing until about 2 weeks ago, when out of the blue we get a phone call from them asking how many copy's do we want.

The man then has a little chatty chat with Lynn and the upshot is that I have made it into said magazine!!!!!

I can't believe it!

It hits the shops Friday 13th July , but we have it in-stock ready to ship or collect now!!! I have put up a couple of pictures, but if you can get a copy I highly recommend it (and no not just cos I'm in it!!) But because the stamps this issue are gorgeous.

Happy colouring everyone hope you like 'em.

Nicky xx

Red hot!

Well as promised here's the colour list for this fiery red hot babe!

Isn't she cool as a red head, she's definitely my favourite, and my husbands!!

Hair

Oatmeal

Apricot

Honeycomb

Ginger

Spice

Burnt Orange (be very sparing with this one!)

Skin

Coral 

Oatmeal

Blush

You may notice that on the hair the colours are listed light to dark, this is the order i have used them in, I found it easier and got better results in this order, I don't know why I just did!! Strangely I always use the face colours in the reverse Dark to light order, and this always works, basically I don't think it really matters which way you do it, its what works best for you.

And what colour works best with such a coppery look?

Azure

and Cyan of course!

On her bikini I always colour straight over the dots and put them back in later when dry, using a white gel pen.

So What did I do with her?.....Well I altered a coffee tin! As she's a beach babe what better than make a holiday fund savings tin.

I looove this brand of coffee as does a friend of mine and together we have collected loads of tins, so we challenged each other to come up with novel ways of using them. They are yet to come up with something!

I have used an old paperback novel, I shut my eyes and pulled out some pages, as a book lover this was hard! I used a couple of different distress inks on them, roughly tore them down to size and stuck them on

The bunting is a Helz Cuppleditch Stamp Partytime.

All the wording is cut from my Cricut machine using the Don Juan cartridge on the under pressure font

This is one of my favourites. I cut these letters on white card and coloured them while on the carrier sheet to make it easier, once in place I covered them in Glossy Accents.

The sun stamp is a freebie from Craft Stamper magazine, All in all despite having paid for the download, this is quite a low cost project, and definitely a lot of fun, and I have a lot of tins here so better hop to it and make some more! And you never know I may actually be able to save for a holiday and get away from this blessed rain!

Happy colouring you lot,

Nicky xx

At least someone has sunshine!

Well the rain doesn't seem to want to give up, so I thought I would put a little sunshine in our lives!

It's the Artstamps show this weekend at Newbury racecourse and unusually its absolutely bucketing down.

This has always been the weekend my gorgeous hubby takes our youngest to the seaside! Not this year, unfortunately its just going to be a trip to the cinema to see the new Spiderman 3D !

So back to the sunshine! A few weeks ago a friend suggested I hop on over to Saturated Canary and have a look at their digi images, and OMG I love them!

I have used Cali Girl on this card as she is great for showing hair and skin as well as being just pure fun.

So, which colours....

For her Skin:

Burnt orange

Coral

Sunkissed pink

Blush

 Antique Pink for her lips ( I have glossy accented them!)

Because I have given her fairly dark skin I thought she better have quite dark brunette hair:

Chestnut

Cocoa

Cinnamon

Tan

She has big beautiful Cyan blue eyes.

The rest of the colours are from the summer limited edition Promarker set, available from the Mulberry-bush.

The papers are an old DCWV retro stack, and the sentiment is printed onto a piece of Tim Holtz         Kraft-Core, Nostalgic Collection card.

I hope you like my card, if you would like to know how to colour her in Blonde then I have put the instructions on my Promarker page, you will find the heading along the top of this page, and also check out the blog Monday as I will be showing you how to colour her as a red head.

Happy colouring

Nicky xx

Tiddly wryn !

Well what a funny week I have had ! funny thing happened on Wednesday, spent the morning in minor injuries at the local community hospital as I had an absolutely tiny piece of glass in the bottom of my foot, but OMG was it painful (I cried!).

Luckily for me my father in law is a taxi driver and was available to take me down, I thought he was going to break the door down as I shuffled to answer it, my gorgeous hubby had rung and explained but you know how these things are by the time he had relayed the info I was bleeding to death with half a pane of glass in me!!!!

So after around 40 minutes of trying to remove it and waiting an hour and twenty for an x-ray the nurse even gave up, I was then sent packing with drawing paste smothered over and told to keep foot elevated! 

So what was a girl to do on an unexpected day off??? Watch Wimbledon, download some digis and do some colouring in of course!! 

Voila, the results of my efforts.... 

This is Wryn, she's from a company called Tiddly inks

She is such a little cutie, this is my first digital purchase and am so surprised at how quick and easy it was to do, no waiting for a week for a stamp to arrive, and of course I can re-size her !

As always I have used my promarkers and chosen some delicate colours to go with the beautiful papers,

 I am especially pleased with her hair, I wanted a soft colour to compliment her tutu!

Hair

Primrose

Cinnamon

Skin

Sunkissed Pink

Blush

Antique Pink (cheeks)

Tutu

Pale Pink

Baby Pink

Rose pink

Shoes

Pastel Green

Turquoise

I hope you like her as much as I do, here's a couple of other colouring options

The card samples on Tiddly Inks are so stunning, I have tried to emulate the beautiful colouring that the ladies over there have produced, I am always keen to learn new techniques and  am loving the way they do the hair.

I also (sadly!) researched the olympic outfit, and coloured her accordingly! (sorry about the dodgy picture)

Happy colouring

Nicky x

Thought for the week

Rain rain go away, come again another day.....Although, it means we can do more colouring!