National Crafting Month coloring for adults

March is National Crafting Month!  How do you plan to celebrate?

One great way to celebrate is to relax with one of the fastest growing crafting trends . . . coloring books for adults.  There are books with images and inspirations, helping you to relax and forget about the stress in your daily life.  (click on any of the images below for more information on the specific book or to purchase the books)









 Some coloring books even come with hidden pictures

 

 Or they include images from our favorite themes, like Doctor Who

 

 Harry Potter

 

 or my personal favorite . . . Disney!

 

So grab your crayons, colored pencils or markers and lets do some coloring!

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Opportunities for Embellishment Inks

Sometimes our crafting projects dont always work out the way we planned.  We can look at these like mistakes and toss out the project to start over or we can look at these as opportunities for embellishment.

Lets take this card for example.  I was inking up this beautiful flower using a stencil and you can see to the far right of the card some of my ink went off of the stencil.

At first I was so upset with myself, and I almost threw the card in the garbage.  But then I had an idea . . . what if inked over this smudge to hide it?

I grabbed some painters tape and ripped it to give an irregular edge to one side of the tape.  I then placed the tape so that the ink smudge was to the right of the tape.

Next, using some of the same inks that I used to create the flower, I inked in the area to the right of the painters tape.

Once I pulled the painters tape away, there was this border to the card.

It is not what I originally had planned for this card, but in the end it did turn out very nice.  If I had not shown you this full blog post you might not have ever known that there was a mistake that I was hiding under that beautiful border.

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Using Watercolor Inks with Gina K at Bella Crafts Connection

It is time for my post about the second class I took with Gina K and her Design Team at the Bella Crafts Connection event at the Mall Of America.  If you want to see the post about the first class, just click HERE.  This class was focused on watercolor inks and pens.  Here are all of the sample cards on the display table.

For this class we were able to play with Ginas Wild Blossom stamp set.  I am so glad we got to take this one home with us!  I think I am really going to have fun with this set.

Supplies for the first card . . . pink base, black piece to go behind the stamped piece and a pink trim.

Here is Gina showing us how to ink up and use a LARGE stamp like the vine stamp in this set.

She recommends putting your stamp on the block, inking it and then laying the piece of cardstock on top of the stamp to get the image on the cardstock.  This way you are not messing around with that HUGE block.

Here is mine.  I got a little ink smudge in the lower right corner . . . I will take care of that later.

This is a close up of the sample card.

And then mine . . . with the smudge  :(

Next card!  This card is made with the Smacking Acetate technique.  Yes, we all laughed about the name. 

 Take a piece of acetate and three different colors of watercolor markers and scribble on the acetate.   You dont need to purchase acetate for this project . . . just use the clear piece that comes with your stamp set.  Since you are using watercolor markers it will clean right off.  Then spritz the scribbles with water.  Then put a piece of cardstock down on top of the acetate  

And you end up with this beautiful background!  You can run a ink pad over it to fill in any white space if you would like.  Then just stamp your image and sentiment.

I was having SO MUCH FUN I totally forgot to take in progress photos for this last card!  Here is Ginas sample.  The gray background piece that looks like woodgrain . . . that was actually a white piece of cardstock and we took an ink pad and ran it down the length of the whole piece of cardstock.

Okay, are you ready to see my finished cards?

As you can see, I used my favorite form of "cover up" . . . the rhinestone sticker sheets from The Buckle Boutique!  Since they cut so easily, I could cut a piece just the right size for what I needed to cover.  I used a portion of the Tie Dye print for this, which was nice since it gave me several of the colors that were in the card.  The Tie Dye is on sale right now . . . $8 for a sheet 10" x 20" . . . while supplies last so hurry!

Here is my second card.  I really like this one since it is so quick and easy!  I feel like I could make several of these in a very short time and be ready for all of the family birthday gatherings, yet each card will be different because of the colors and the way the markers will react with the water.

And my third card . . . which also ended up with a smudge on it . . . so more bling for "cover up".

These cards might not have turned out perfect, but they did show me that I dont have to be afraid of using inks and markers.  Even I can do this!  And the more I do it, the better they will get.

If you want to check out Gina K. and her amazing Design Team, I have included some links for you below.  Tell them Shawn sent you!

Gina K. on Stamp TV // Blog // Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // YouTube // Shop Gina K.

And make sure to tune in Tuesday September 28th at 7:00 PM Central Time to see the new stamp launch!  Tell them Shawn sent you!

If you would like to attend the Bella Crafts Connection next year, be sure to follow Bella Crafts at

Bella Crafts Publishing website // Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // YouTube

#BellaCon15

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Urban Doodles with Lorine Mason

This is my last post about the classes and workshops I took at the Bella Crafts Connections event at the Mall of America.  One of the classes I took was called Urban Doodles, and when I signed up for it I had no idea how fun it was going to turn out being!  It was taught by Lorine Mason and she actually just posted something on her blog about the class . . . check it out by clicking HERE.

First off, what is Urban Doodles?  It is making some basic shapes on a surface and then filling the spaces of those shapes in with patterns and colors.  You can fill in as little or as much as you would like.  Patterns can be anything.  There are no rules.

Here are some examples that Lorine brought with her to the class.

I loved how the colors were blended on this sample!

For our class Lorine wanted us to make a finished project.  If we just worked on a piece of fabric then we could take it home and make it into something . . . a pillow, a wall hanging . . . whatever we wanted . . . but she was thinking ahead and thought about how people bring projects home and say "I am going to do something with that" and then never do, so to avoid that Lorine sewed some fabric composition book covers for all of us to use for this project.  Now we could just take it home and put it on a book.  (Great idea!)

To start, fan fold the fabric and then put rubber bands on it in a few spots.

Next, take spray fabric paint and spray the fabric.  If you want to use multiple colors you can do that also.  

You can go heavier in some spots and lighter in others.  I just did a light mist since I wanted more space for the shapes and doodles.

Now, you would let that dry overnight, but to speed things up we used a blow dryer and then ironed the fabric to set the die.  Here is what mine looked like.

Now time to add the shapes.  We used templates that Lorine brought with, but you can use any shape you want.  I might want to try this idea again and do a Hidden Mickey in the pattern.  First we traced around the templates with pencil so that we could figure out the placement and adjust things we wanted to.  Then we came in with a black fabric marker to darken the outlines  . . . then came the part I personally was nervous about . . . the doodles and painting!  What if I messed up!

This is where having a great teacher like Lorine really helped.  She showed me that there are no mistakes, and that you cannot screw this up . . . it might not look like what you had planned, but you can allow it to become an opportunity to try something new.  She even showed me some spots on one of her display pieces that she said when the colors first started to bleed together she thought the whole piece was ruined.  She walked away from the project, and when she came back later she looked again and realized that the end result was something beautiful that she had not expected and she actually ended up repeating that technique in other areas on the same piece.  

Here are some close ups of my finished piece.

This is the back cover.  I did this little cluster of circles to hide a spot where I must have had ink on my hand and there was a weird splotch on the fabric.  Bet you cannot even SEE the thing that I first thought was a "mistake".  (see . . . I told you Lorine is a good teacher)

And this is the finished project.  I put it on the composition book that I always have on my craft room work surface.  I use this book to sketch out ideas or when that random thought comes through my head and I think "I dont want to forget that".

If you want to learn more about Lorine Mason and her classes on Urban Doodles, I have provide links where you can find her below.  Tell her Shawn sent you!

Happy Doodling

Lorine Mason Website // Blog // Facebook // Pinterest // Twitter 


#BellaCon15

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