Special Friend Card with Claire

29/04/2019

Hello and Happy Monday to all my special crafty friends! I’ve got so much to tell you!

New launch reveals, giveaways, craft show events for your diary and a Live TV show on Create & Craft. All coming up this week - Eeeek! So excited I could burst into flame!

I’m loving how busy things are at Thirsty Brush right now. It really is turning into a mammoth year for the brand, and I couldn’t be happier. So, before I delve into this weeks technique, here is the TB news (cue fancy news bulletin music):

New launch reveal on Facebook Live Tuesday 30th April 7pm
Live Create and Craft Show for the new launch Friday 3rd May 11am (Special capped P&P during Create and Crafts Club Class event too)
Craft show dates for your diary - Thirsty Brush will be at Excalibur Papercraft Fairs Saturday 4th May 10am-3pm @ Birmingham Motorcycle Museum B92 0EJ and Happy Stampers Saturday 11th May 10am-4pm @ Portsunlight Hulme Hall CH62 5DH
Head to the Thirsty Facebook Page to enter the current giveaway to win 2 co-ordinating stamp & die sets from the Colour My World Collection (link at bottom of page). Closes Tuesday evening
Last chance to get the special launch prices on the recent Garden Curiosity Collection bundles. Prices will be going back up after Tuesday

Now you are all up to date, onto this weeks blog project….

Something a little different from me this week. I don’t normally do a blog post for a new release until after live shows, but I’m so excited about the upcoming designs that I have decided to give you all a little teaser treat!

I’m a huge Instagram fan. I can spend hours looking at all the fantastic papercrafts and techniques from fellow card makers. Having come across this beautiful dotty colouring technique, I knew it would be just perfect for the new designs. Firstly, a big crafty thank you to fabulous US crafters @mommacooksalot and @alexsyberia for sharing this amazing technique and allowing me to pass it on to you guys.

Now, it isn’t the quickest of colouring methods out there and it does take a bit of practice (well, a lot of practice if you want to get as good as the beautiful makes from the ladies above!), but I promise you it is totally worth it. I had so much fun losing myself in the process. This card took about 2:26 minutes. Precise huh?!! I know this because, its exactly how long my duvet took to boil wash in my machine, after the cat decided to go pee pee on it. Hashtag Angry Face. I swear, my animals will have me bankrupt soon! It’s a good job I love them.

Supplies for this technique:

Thirsty Brush & Co Modern Floral Stamp set - Coming 3rd May!
A6 Kraft card blank
Smooth white card stock
Alcohol markers - preferably with a blush and bullet nib. I used Altenew Artist Markers
Metallic Copper Wow embossing powder
Versamark embossing ink
Heat Tool
Light grey stamping ink. I used Generation Ink DG03
Foam pads or 1 or 2mm craft or fun foam for dimension (thank you Jen McGuire!)
Double sided tape or tape pen

How to create:

Cut the piece of white card stock slightly smaller than your card blank
Stamp the large floral image from the Modern Floral stamp set in the grey ink as a guide for colouring. I overlapped the design slightly over the bottom left corner
Using the artist markers, start by outlining the stamped image using a flicking motion and the brush nib. I’ve done this in a light blue but experiment with different background colours to suit the occasion maybe
Now go in and start colouring the flowers one at a time. For each flower you will need at least a light, medium and darker toned pen in your chosen colour.
Your first layer of colour should be flicked into the petals in the lightest colour
Then go in with the medium tone and add some flicks and dots layered over the light tone. Focus on the areas of the flowers you would like to define and shadow, such as the edges of petals, where they overlap and the centre of the flower. Top tip - don’t be scared to colour onto the stamped grey line. It’s there just to guide you and on the finished card it will almost disappear into your colouring
Add some dark dots with the bullet nib, again concentrate on those areas towards the edge of the petals or the centre of the flower. Trying to keep your dots loose and not to regimented
Repeat for each flower in different colours or tones. Use the same technique to colour the leaves in green
To add some more detail to the background, go back in with some blues and add some spaced out dot colouring
Finish by double heat embossing one of the large sentiment in a copper metallic powder for some shine and depth
Adhere your artwork to the card blank with double sided tape and some craft foam cut slightly smaller than your coloured panel
Sit back in amazement of your colouring skills! Do also check out @mommacooksalot IG account for a a fab video on here colouring, it’s amazeballs!

I just love this look and will definitely be using it to make more cards with all of the Thirsty Brush designs so far. Feel free to bookmark this page so you can try this out when you receive you new stamps from Fridays launch or why not try it with your existing TB stamps!

Claire xx

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