Autumn Apples

Good day my fine fellow crafters, can you believe its nearly September already? It's certainly feeling autumnal, and so thoughts turn to harvest and harvest festival, traditionally celebrated here in England throughout September, I used to love the service the little ones used to do at primary school,  although I was one of the totally unorganised mothers who scrabbled around the back of the cupboards on the morning to find anything suitable, and in date!!  and then of course sitting in church hoping no-one would notice what produce my lot were traipsing in with!

 

 

So with that in mind, todays card is Harvest Fairy Apple from Mo's digital Pencil. I have coloured him with my Spectrum Noir Pencils.

 

 

Not wanting to quite let go of summer just yet, I have used The Freshly Picked stack of papers

from Die Cuts With a View 

I also used my bunting Epiphany tool from Crafters Companion,( my favourite one!)

 

 

The Spectrum Noir pencil colours are:

 

 skin 023, 009, 005, 091

Hair: 087, 096, 104

Nickers: 056, 058

Wings: 017, 047

Leaves: 056, 050, 058

Apple: 017, 056, 020, 024, 027, 033

 

 

Happy autumn everyone but most of all...

Happy Colouring!

Nicky x

Embossing folders and Spectrum Noir pencils

Have you been over to the Spectrum Noir Blog recently? It's a wonderful source for anyone who loves crafting and colouring in! There are some wonderful tutorials and video guides for just about everything, and if you ever suffer with a crafty block it's a great source of inspiration.



I was having a little wander through there the other day and came across a fabulous tutorial for using your embossing folders and Spectrum Noir by the lovely and talented Christina Griffiths, and in her video she shows you how to use embossing folders with a bit of parchment and Spectrum Noir alcohol markers, so I gots me to thinking...will it work with the blendable pencils???

Well YES, it works fabulously well! The pencils just glide across the surface beautifully.

I used a Vintage Christmas 6 x 6 embossing folder from Crafters Companion 

There are a couple of things you need to know first:

You need clean hands for working with parchment,

Work your colours dark to light, and choose slightly darker colours than you would normally use, and blend as you go

Work on the back of your embossed parchment

and lean on a black piece of card

Colours used: 024, 027 ,033,  099, 017 Ribbon and bow

holly: 047, 058, 050, 052
 

I mounted my parchment onto a piece of white card and attached it with brads, then onto some green and red, I haven't used any embellishments as I wanted a clean and simple look.

 

Anyone receiving a card like this will think you put in hours of beautiful parchment work, but only you will know the truth!

Happy Colouring
Nicky x

Spectrum Noir August Nature/Landscape challenge

 

Just a reminder that this months challenge over on the Spectrum Noir Facebook page is Nature/Landscape,

 

There's a great prize up for grabs too, but you have to be in it to win it!

 



 

Here's a little bit of inspiration for you,

 

 

The image is from Just Inklined

The papers are Pebbles, Family Ties collection

& American Crafts Amy Tangerine  Sketchbook collection

 

 

Spectrum Noir Blendable Pencils used:

Water: 064, 069, 063, 055 plus blending solution

Rocks: 114, 115, 109

Roofs: 109, 111, 097

Greenery: 044, 057, 059, 048, 043, 054

Poppies: 024, 033

Sky: 062 plus blending solution

 

Go on have a go, you never know where that leap of faith will take you !

 You can add your entry by clicking here

 

Happy colouring

Nicky x

 

 



Blanche!

Today I wanted to show you a little project I have been working on that's for me, in my craft room.

As lots of you know, I'm totally unorganised sometimes...well all the time! I need constant reminders of what I have to do and write lots of lists to keep me on track, of course I'm always losing aforementioned scrappy lists, so when I saw this board at a craft show I knew it would be perfect as a blackboard

 

 

The board came blank, and I first masked off along the base of the words and gave it two coats of

 Jo Sonja's black gesso and then sealed it with Jo Sonja's Clear Glaze Medium.

 

Next I used Mod Podge and decoupaged some pretty paper onto the words, I don't like to tear my papers as I don't like the finish, it was quite hard to do them all in one piece but well worth it to have a nice finish.

 

 

I used a black gel pen and did some faux stitching on the words, and a white gel pen around the blackboard.

I couldn't resist one of the latest digi stamps by Mo Manning of Mo's digital pencil, She's called Blanche! I just think she is so brilliant, and it appeals greatly to my quirky side! She also comes with a cute little slogan, which I printed out and stuck to the blackboard.

 

So, what to colour her with...Spectrum Noir blendable pencils of course!

 

 

I started to colour her skin with 093, its the darkest tone as I wanted to work dark to light to see if I could achieve the same results, happy to report it works!!

 



 

I then went onto 009, gently going over the first colour and a bit further into the white.

 

 

I then finished with 005, I also left some white paper, I know that's a bit scary but its ok, the colours are pale enough for them to not leave a hard edge and look glaringly obvious.

 

 

I finished her skin by going back over with 093 to deepen her cheeks and anywhere that may have blended out a little too much.

 

I then finished the picture with the following colours:

Macaw: 011, 015, 062, 063, 046, 118, 120

Chair: 041, 063, 064

Desk: 084, 087, 104

Dress: 056, 058, 059, 061, 065, 029

Lamp: 018, 019

Paper: 038, 040

Tote: 036, 030

 

 

I took a long time to "fussy cut" her out with a knife, so that the black would show through,

I love her a lot, and hope one day I look that cool!

 But until then....

Happy Colouring everyone

Nicky x

Top tip alert!!

Happy Monday everybody, today I thought that I would share a great tip that was suggested to me by my Friend

Joanna Wright, from I love 2 cut paper, she could see I was getting stressed at having to constantly look up on the chart which pencil went in which tin and that they were a jumble on the desk! 

 

 

 

So over the weekend I set about remedying the situation, first I tried to use a white gel pen to write the numbers onto the black tin insert, but that just didn't work, so I punted around and found some tiny little white labels just the right size to fit into the little pencil cradles.

 

It worked! as you will see from the photo I didn't stop there and I sacrificed one of the leaflets that come with the tins, cut it up and stuck each piece in the corresponding tin, so that when all my tins are open on my desk I know which set of pencils I'm using!

 

Sometimes being a bit of a sorter is a curse, but most of the time I love it, and if it saves time in the long run even better, I love my job!!!

 

Happy Colouring

Nicky x