PENCIL SHADED BOOKMARKS

How spooky...I popped on the TV while I sat down to post my latest efforts which involved something I hadn't done for absolutely ages ... when on QVC they had just finished showing a set of Martha Stewart Pencil Crayons....which I had just been experimenting with...NOT Martha Stewart's but an ancient school set belonging to my daughter (good quality but many broken leads), a tin of little pencils from a pound shop and some novelty multi pencils left over from some kids party bags!!



To be honest I actually got on with the cheapest one the best, the old school set were lovely and soft and blendable but they didn't sharpen well and it was difficult to use them on small details.
To soften edges and blend....I tried various implements and techniques (polystyrene, different erasers, foam...etc!) but actually blending with my finger worked best.

The reason I was experimenting was I realised not using my stamps on my budget cards was limiting the use of images to clip art and digi stamps from the PC and as my printer is inkjet this doesn't take kindly to watercolour techniques. One of the reasons why I created my DIGI TO SKETCH method, and of course Promarkers are out of the question as I class these with my proper Cardmaking stuff....

BUT..... what fun I had ......I had forgotten how much I love old fashioned colouring in. It was so therapeutic.

I found a lovely free image on BEE CRAFTY's Blog. this is the first time I had visited their site and despite not going in for cute images (don't really get much call to use them), I found their images charming ...quite quirky, I was even tempted to buy the cute little pair of bunnies...think they will make great Easter Cards ...."from us" style. Cant wait to have a play.

The whole exercise was a practice one, but I decided to turn my efforts into bookmarks to giveaway free to celebrate World Book Day 3rd March....instead of RAK ATC'c...these are RAK bookmarks!!!

To finish them off I raided some of salvaged ribbon stock!!!!

So now they are finished articles I will enter them into some challenges.

So many challenges had HEARTS this month (we do all like a bit of romance)

MY TIME TO CRAFT incorporated FLOWERS WITH THEIR HEARTS,

PAPERPLAY stipulated not Valentine with their HEARTS AND FLOWERS,

DYSU helped expand my theme with Ribbons,

and FAB N FUNKY inspired some TEXTURE ,

SPOONFUL OF SUGAR inspired Love.

THE STAMPMAN is looking for hearts,

PAPERTAKE has "Have a heart"

and of course BEE CRAFTY who supplied the image required the additional element of hearts

This is the most challenges I have entered and some I have never visited before so I hope I am not stepping on any toes and have followed guidelines properly...but I couldn't resist entering after visiting and getting inspired on these many great blogs.

wow!!!!!haven't I run on ......sorry!

Packaging Card.

I know this card looks like I am cheating using "proper craft stuff" but the stamp was a free gift on Quick Cards Magazine and you do not need an ink pad as it stamps beautifully using an waterbased black pen (felt-tip).

Just lightly brush the side of the pen over the image till all the raised area is covered, lightly huff the stamp (your breath will remoisten any dried bits) then press onto card. the only trouble with this is you will not be able to use watercolour techniques with the image as the lines will run and blur (forgot this and ended with a very grubby faced little girl with the first one I stamped!!!). Use a permanent dyed based ink pad if you have one if you wish to watercolour. I actually found it looked quite good just coloured with felt-tips, I would normally prefer the shading you achieve with watercolouring but as it is a small image the strong colours created quite and impact.

ANYWAY... I actually wanted to focus on the background as the background of the card is actually the packaging and a good example of being able to disguise any unwanted bits. I cut the top writing completely off and the writing in the bottom right corner is covered by the greeting (cut from an old Christmas card). The white card torn and decoupaged on the image is torn from the back of another card..as an extra highlight I used the correction pen again. The card is finished with a scrap of wool and a piece of the ribbon from last years Christmas cake.