Pen and Paperie: March 2014

Sunday, 30 March 2014

I am the mockingjay

There’s a gorgeous new image over at Simply B Stamps, District 31 Betty, and I just had to colour her up.

Now I should have been doing my DT projects, shh, don’t tell Betty or Corinne, but how could I resist this image? And I couldn’t just colour District 31 Betty I had to put her on a card so it was just as well the post from Retro Sketches came out as I was downloading the image, it suited just perfectly. Although after not measuring all my elements I went and completely covered the space between the two long thin elements, to think I cut them to the right size and even got my ruler out to make sure they were perfectly spaced and you can’t even see it! Oh well, teaches me to measure out all parts of a layout.

I wanted the lovely black outlines but after I stuck everything down I thought maybe I should have gone more shabby chic and distressed my edges but no matter. I do think the lace and the pretty button I found in my stash suit the image and with both elements I am entering this in the current Scrapping4funChallenges’ challenge. I’m always a bit unsure of adhering buttons with the back shank, hopefully the Glossy Accents will hold. The button was a bit too shiny for my liking so I used some Rub’nBuff and Distress Ink to, well, distress it. I didn’t have any flowers in the right shade of smoky purple so I mixed up the right colour with my chalks.

And yes, that terrific sentiment comes with the image, it was a pain getting it on that tiny resin but I think it looks fab. The original font looks so much better, I had to trace this out on a domed surface and really, really small, about ¼” high only.

I am trying to enter more of the Outlawz challenges, not just their sketch one so I am going to enter this in the Alcohol Marker Challenge. The current theme is anything goes, nice and easy to fit that one.

Ingredients:

Copics

Skin E50, E51, E53 (E02 cheeks)

Eyes W00, W1, W7

Lips W00, W1, W3

Hair BV 20, BV23, BV25, BV29

Dress C00, C1, C3, C5, C7

Wings BV02, BV31, BV34

Chalks & Powders etc

Pebbles Chalk ~ Metallic Cream

Embellishments

Close to My Heart ~ Bitty Pearl

Metal Button from stash

Mulberry Roses from stash (coloured with chalk)

Prima Shabby Chic Resin Treasures ~ Dell’Arte

Inks & Paints etc

Rub’nBuff ~ Pewter

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Black Soot, Iced Spruce, Shaded Lilac & Weathered Wood

Papers

7 Dots Studio Cold Country ~ Freezing Tears, Lonely Evenings & Secret Diary

Core’dinations Tim Holtz Distress Cardstock ~ Weathered Wood

Kaisercraft Cardstock ~ Liquorice

Ribbons & Trims etc

Venice Lace ~ Rose (coloured with BV20 Various Ink)

Stamps

Simply B Stamps ~ District 31 Betty

Challenges

Outlawz Alcohol Marker Challenge ~ Anything goes

Scrapping4funChallenges #13 ~ Lace and Buttons

Retro Sketches #108

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

…it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end

Today I have an older Simply B Stamp’s image to share, the stunning Bella the Vampire, from the Steampunk Halloween collection.

I love Bella’s floaty dress and it just wanted to be coloured in platinum shades and then when I saw the current challenge at 7 Dots Studio was ‘fly away’ I just knew I had to add wings to her. So in the end, she hasn’t turned out all that vampirish but rather angelic.

I’ve had the Prima candelabra for ever in my stash and I thought it suited the image beautifully. It also helped cover the join in my designer paper, I only have 6x6 sheets of 7 Dots Studio paper as I usually do cards that size. This piece is goiung in my box of Kraft album pieces so is 4.75x7.75, I could have lined up the join with the lace but that would have meant using another piece of the paper and I really wanted to save it for future projects. And being a Steampunk piece I had to add some metal bling suitably Steampunk, even angels need to get their bearings I imagine so a compass coin was called for as were a gear and faucet wheel, again helpfully hiding my join.

Now I did start with the sketch from Sketch n’ Dies but not sure you can really tell with all my embellies. I’d originally thought to just add Bella instead of the flower element but the join in my paper and the need to make her an angel complete with wings added way more elements. But for what it’s worth, the sketch was the starting inspiration and I do have die cuts as well, although I did resize the sketch to fit my finished project too. Which is the nice thing about sketches you can resize them and they still work really well.

With my angel wings I am also entering this over at the current challenge at Creative Knockouts. I do love those wings, I took plain chippie ones and added platinum ink and clear embossing powder to give them a metallic finish. I used the same technique on the chippie frame with the image name.

I joined the Kit and Clowder group pretty much when Alyce started it, I have admired her colouring for ages. Her challenges started last month, I didn’t enter but I am feeling brave this month so am linking up my project there where the theme is also wings.

I’m a regular at the Outlawz Sketch challenge but tend to forget about their other ones. The current theme at the Paper A La Mode challenge is to use something starting with the first letter of your first name. My project features plenty of embellies but also some Enamel Accents so think I’ve got the “E’s” covered so am also entering this over there.

I really love how this turned out and hopefully I have inspired you to create a Steampunk project. We’d sure love to see you over at Simply Steampunk Challenges, a new challenge starts the 5th of every month and there’s plenty of inspiration from the awesome DT going up all the time on the blog.

Ingredients:

Copics

Skin E50, E51, E53 (E02 cheeks)

Eyes Y28

Lips R46, R59

Hair T4, T6, T8, 100

Dress W00, W1, W3, W5, W7

Chalks & Powders etc

Pebbles Chalk ~ Metallic Cream

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Clear

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Spellbinders Nestabilities ~ Opulent Ovals