Thursday 17 February 2011

3 cards and my new colour guide

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a great week. As usual in the Honey Bootique household it's a case of another day, another drama. Really at some point, things have got to settle down, it's getting ridiculous!! I ended up in casualty yesterday morning- a severe allergic reaction to anti inflammatories I've been taking for my back. I'm covered head to toe in ugly red big spots and my mouth and lips are all swollen!!!! Apparently when it reaches your lips, you're in trouble as if it gets to your throat you can have trouble breathing. I do have spots in my mouth but luckily it didn't reach my throat.
We do have some good news though- my Mum's drain has dramatically reduced in the last week. We reckon she's down from about 17ml to about 4ml now!! Yay yay yay!!!

Today I have 3 cards to show you and my new colour guide I made using my Bind It All. I think it's going to be really useful so I'd like to share it with you.

Onto my first card. I LOVE this Stamping Bella stamp. Now you know I can't get enough Bellas but I seriously think this is one of my favs. It's such a big stamp and I just love her smile. It's so wide, it cheers me up every time I look at it. I coloured her with watercolour pencils and used Lyra pencils for the grass and outlined the whole image with copics. I tried to make the coffee look like Starbucks and the donuts like Krispy Kreme! I adore this beautiful paper by My Mind's Eye and did plenty of paper piecing. The sentiment is Papertrey Ink.

I'd like to enter this into:
Stamptacular Sunday- Lovin' from the oven
Our Creative Corner- Cut it out (used paper piecing)


Here is a close up.

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella, Papertrey Ink); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Copics; Nesties; Papers (My Mind's Eye); Buttons (Walmart); Sewing machine

Onto my second card which is for my friend's twin girls. I used this gorgeous Penny Black teddy coloured with watercolour pencils, again grass coloured with lyras and outlined image with copics. Papers are by Making Memories and scalloped borders are Die-namics dies.

I'd like to enter this into:
Penny Black Challenge- pretty in pink
Scrap Creations- spring fever

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Penny Black); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Copics; Papers (Making Memories); Assorted cardstock); Nesties; Die-namic dies; Bow (?); Lettering (freebie); Stickles

My last card is another Bella! As usual I coloured her with watercolour pencils, paper pieced her dress and outlined her with copics. The papers are by Basic Grey. Sentiment is Hero Arts.

I'd like to enter this into:
Secret Crafter- use flowers

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella; Hero Arts); Watercolour pencils; Copics; Papers (Basic Grey); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Flower (Ebay); Button (Walmart); Pearls (freebies); decorative border (K & Co); Corner punch; Stickles

And lastly here is my colour guide!! Yay. I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I decided to create this to get organised with my colouring and I put ALOT of effort into working out what pages I was going to have and the layout etc but I have to say it took ten times longer because of the Bind It All products. Maybe I've missed something but you'd expect the 8" x 8" page protectors to work with the 8" x 8" covers or at least the coveralls. Well, they don't!!! They're too big so to cut a long story short I ended up making my own covers out of some old cardboard so that they could incorporate the page protectors. So here is the cover made with papers from DCWV. I added some stitching, used Sizzix lettering and the large zig zag die from MFT.

On the inside cover I made a pocket to put extra template lists in.

This post shows how I've divided my colour guide up by the different colour mediums I use- brush markers, copics, lyra pencils and watercolour pencils and then I've added a section at the back for notes (ie useful websites with colour tutorials on, useful books with colour techniques etc). I made these sections using my new Stampin Up tab punch with computer generated text. Eagle eyes will notice that the font is the same as the one used on my tabs on my blog!

I took ages creating all the pages using a free graphics package I downloaded. I wanted the whole guide to incorporate the feel and look of my blog and to have a uniform feel so I designed a header and footer for each of the pages using the fonts from my blog and a cartoony design. I'm also going to be designing a craft guide soon (more on that another time) so I will be designing very similar templates for that.

Each colour medium first contains the colour groups. With my watercolour pencils I decided purely to list the colours I had as I'm not going to expand my collection any further. Some of these colour groups go onto 2 pages so I have put them in page protectors. I also did this as I like to take the pages out to place next to my designers papers to check for the right colour match to know which papers to use.

This second photo show my Lyra pencils colour groups. This is how I have done the other colour groups for the other mediums whereby I have listed all the colours but merely coloured the ones I actually have.

For each medium I have also done a template for my favourite colour combos I use. I'm sure if you're like me, you have some colours you use regularly eg to do grass or hair etc but if you're disorganised like me, you never write them down and then have to figure them out every time you colour a new image!! So I decided to get organised. As you can see this one is for watercolour pencils. I'll use the example of my Bellas as I generally colour their hair using the same colours so under description I would write "Bella hair colour" and then under watercolour pencils colours I would colour a bit of the colour on the top of the first box and then underneath write "032 light ochre", "059 brown" in second box and "049" umber in third box.

The smaller templates are actually also removable and you can add several pages underneath as you can see closely they are held in place by photo corners, this makes using the guide much more flexible if you want to change things or make a mistake.

For the copics, I did an additional page of recommended copic colours. This is because there are so many sites out there with copic tutorials where they recommend certain colour combos eg for doing black hair but maybe I haven't tried them out yet but think I will use them in the future. So if I come across them, I can immediately write them down and know where there are for future use.

And here is the back page.

I'd like to enter this for:
Little Claire's Blog- anything goes
Stampin with the dragon- anything goes
CRAFT- not a card

I hope you liked my colour guide! I've used it loads already and can't wait to start filling it in. If anyone has any questions about it, don't hesitate to ask me!

Crafty stash used: Bind It All machine, wires, page protectors; assorted cardstock; recycled cardboard; papers (DCWV); Sewing machine, Lettering (Sizzix); Flowers; Buttons (Walmart); Punch (Stampin Up)

23 comments:

cardmaking bird said...

Good news about your mum, I'm so pleased for her/you. And sorry to hear about your allergic reaction - I really hope it all goes down soon! What a fantastic guide - and such a good idea!! I think I'm going to have to do something like it myself because I'm using my prismas at the moment and every time I use them I have to scribble the colours on bits of paper to see how they really come out - and I must've done it a million times!! Thanks for the inspiration. Hugs, Marie x

Unknown said...

What a great project for this weeks challenge over at CRAFT.Thanks for joining in.

Kerry x

Mel said...

Wow steph your house sound a little like mine was so glad to hear your mum is improving and hope you recover really quick to i once had a reaction to a certain kind of antibiotic that was so scarey but luckily over pritty quick to.
Love the cards, coloures are fab and what a great idea your colour guide is looks amazing too.
hugs Mel

Cathy Fongjoyo said...

Great Cards! loving the sweet colour combo u choose.
and what a creative and neat idea for colour chart .so inspiring :)

Betty Wright said...

WOW! Steph, you have been busy busy! A beautiful suite of cards and the color guide is awesome!

So glad your mom is better and scary stuff about your allergic reaction. Goodness! I will keep you all in my prayers!

Thank you for playing our "Lovin' from the oven" challenge this week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge! Hope to see you playing with us ext week!

Jane (Carroll's Creations) said...

Gorgeous

Thanks for joining our "Stamped Flower" challenge on SECRET CRAFTER SATURDAY CHALLENGE :)

Hugs Jane x

Rosietoes said...

Steph I'm so pleased to hear about your Mum but horrified to hear what has happened to you. I hope you are over the worst of it and thank goodness the reaction stopped when it did.

Your cards are fabulous and I'm amazed at how much patience, effort and thought you have put into your colour guide - it's wonderful and a great idea.
TFS.

Edna x

Kath Stewart said...

adorable card steph and I love your colouring on that sweet ted.....thanks for joining in the fun at Penny Black Saturday....hugs kath xxx

maxine said...

wow stunning work thanks for joining us at Little Claire x

Suzanne said...

What a fantastic idea your colour guide is. I may make one myself, if you dont mind. Sorry to hear about your allergic reaction, it sounds bad. Hope you feel better soon
Hugs Sue x

Rach said...

wow, fantastic, all of it.. xxx

debby4000 said...

Adorable sweet cards and love the colouring guide, I think maybe I need to make one of them.
luv
Debby

Anonymous said...

Nice for you to have some better news for a change (I read down a few posts), and I hop it continues in this vein too. Lovely makes, love the colour folder, boy that's being REALLY organised!!! Thanks for popping in to mine earlier.

Hugs
Brenda

Lizzy said...

Such a beautiful set of cards ~ thanks for joining us at sketch N Stash...good luck!

xx Lizzy xx :)

Jules said...

Hi Steph

At last I have my laptop back and can whizz around my fav blogs .. ..

Good news about your Mum - but not so good for you!! I was really hoping that 2011 was going to be a much better year for you.

Hopefully you have now turned a corner and things are going to get better from here.

I love your cards as always and your colour guide is a real labour of love!! That is amazing. Lots of effort but will be invaluable.

Have a lovely weekend.

Love Jules xx

Sharon Wheet said...

Steph, I really like your card. I think you did an excellent job on the paper piecing, and what a wonderful pattern paper choice! Thank you for playing in our challenge over @ OCC.

Jennifer Rzasa said...

Very nice paper piecing, and I love the stitching and buttons on your card! Thanks for playing along with us this week at Our Creative Corner!

Louise said...

Three fabulous cards and I love your colour guide - what a great idea!
Thank you so much for taking part in the first ever Little Claire challenge x

The Crafty Den said...

What a beautiful card. The image and papers are just wonderful. Thanks for sharing with us at stamp with fun challenge this week. Hugs, Denise x

Julie said...

Fabulous makes and gorgeous papers and images!! Thanks for joining us at Sketch N Stash, Juliexx

Kristen said...

Super cute cards! Thanks for playing with us this week at Going Grey with scrap-creations!

KarenB said...

Oh wow... your cards are amazing but the colour guide just blows me away!! It's such a fabulous idea, and you are so organised.

Wishcraft said...

Love your cards and your colour guide is FAB, such a great idea! Thanks for joining us for our 1st challenge at Little Claire :o) Lisa x