Hi Everyone,

Well with everything that has been going on here this week I just haven’t had any mojo. Each time I would sit down to try and ‘relax’ and colour it would all turn into a kids colouring book and be a mess and I was getting grumpy and so it just made the situation worse.

But today, a little bit of sunshine arrived in my mailbox. Completely unexpected. Last week I had signed up for the Magnolia Stamp Club believing I would be starting from the next release. I was sitting here reading the latest news when DH walks in the door saying “I think you have rubber in this one…” I was a confused as I hadn’t ordered anything and as I opened the parcel and began to pull them out… well let’s just say a little bit of excitement!!

So I have been cheery all day anticipating colouring one up tonight! Now… I know I am supposed to be going all Clean & Simple BUT she begged me!!!  heheee 5 hours later I am happy with the result too for once. :)

This is Tilda with Balloon and I decided to colour her a little lighter than my usual colouring and thought a pretty green dress with a touch of purple would be quite sweet.

These are ‘COOL’ colours and would work very well with our Make it Colourful challenge to colour with either ‘COOL or WARM’ colours. You still have the rest of today to get your entry in!

Tilda is coloured with the following copic marker colours:

Dress: Blender, G40, YG06, G05, Y00, Y13
Balloon: BV00, BV13, V17
Hair: E30, E33, E53
Skin: E000, E01, E11, R20
Shoes: Blender, E30
Socks: Blender, B60

So with such a pretty part dress on, Tilda didn’t want to be all plain and boring so I had to dress her up a little. :) I also received a nice package from Wild Orchid Crafts with these gorgeous flowers and I had just the perfect colours to match Tilda.

The papers are sooo old. I am trying really hard to start using up my old stuff before I buy new stuff. :)

The little pink butterfly is a Doohickey die from my two gorgeous friends in Canada but it was too big so I cut off the tail and cut down the wings and then I stuck on some pretty glitter beads in the centre.

I added some cute little buttons to the corner for the Just Magnolia challenge and I am racing to get it in on time!!

I wanted to add something to the centre of the bow but didn’t really have anything and then I got the idea to use some of my beads. I glued a purple bead to ring that has rhinestones around it and then glued it to the bow. I quite like it!

I added some glitter to the leaves for some shine and called it finished!

I would like to share this card with the following challenges:

1. Simon Says Stamp – Sketch (I altered it a little as my image was a bit long)
2. Just Magnolia – Anything Goes with Buttons
3. Sentimental Sundays – Anything with Wings
4. Craft Your Passion – Let’s Tie One On
5. Stampin B’s – Use a die cut
6. Creative Cowgirls Challenge – Something New
7. Sparkles Forum Challenge – Something New (Top 3! Thanks Sparkles!!)
8. Pollycraft Monday Challenge – New Things
9. Cupcake Craft Challenge – Something New
10. Crafty Creations – New Beginnings
11. The Creative Cottage – Something New
12. Reasonable Ribbon – Something New plus Ribbon
13. Crafty Purple Frog – New Goodies

Boy that’s a few for me. Lot’s of ‘New’ challenges. :) Hope you like stopping by. :)

I am feeling a little bit tired for Q & A – so I am going to come back tomorrow and go through any questions I have received. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing my passion with me. And thank you soooo much to all my friends from around the world for the support and care you have shown towards us Aussie Queenslanders.

Big Squeezes!!  Take care.

Zoe xxoo

Hi Everyone,

Well I was complaining about all the rain we have had for weeks and finally for the last couple of days we have had beautiful sunny weather. A little humid and LOTS of mosquitoes but finally things have a chance to dry up. We feel very fortunate though as some areas of Queensland are having some of the worst floods in 100 years and devastatingly many people have lost everything. Such a horrible event to happen at this time of year especially.

I was so tired when I wrote up my blog candy post that I realised afterwards that I didn’t express how Thankful I am to all my gorgeous followers who leave the most encouraging comments and have helped to make me who I am today. So I am going to put together another little collection of goodies and add it to the post. :)

Today I wanted to share a card I made yesterday. Continuing on with the CAS layout and letting the image shine. :) I was very honoured yesterday to have been included in a top list of ladies that inspire Crissy Armstrong. The talent is incredible and I am so humbled to have had one of my creations along side these ladies. Do go take a peek here (well after you finish here because you will get stuck there and wont see my card!) Well there were a couple of ladies Crissy had been hiding from me and after my dilemma (good to bad) the other day I was immediately drawn to the amazing creations of Yvonne and I just had to share with you!

My card layout is inspired by Yvonne’s stunning creations. She definitely makes it look easy but her clean style and detail is so appealing.

Enough chatter you say!! Show us the card!!

I used a few layers by cutting out shapes with spellbinder dies and then matting with a red that matched Tilda’s top. I stippled the edges with Adirondack Lemonade and Peach Bellini.

I designed up the sentiment and printed it out – Girls just wanna have fun. Which I thought worked nicely with ‘Happy Tilda’.

Here’s a close up of Tilda.

As per usual, I was playing around with the creases in her clothing. I was talking with DH last night about creating folds as he had decided he was quite impressed and he asked how I decided where to place the folds. And my response was I don’t know. I just work it and guess it because it’s just material. She could move just slightly and all the creases and folds would drastically change!

So the point of that ramble…  Experiment ladies! Just try it. It doesn’t matter where the folds are and remember it will look terrible when you first begin. It’s not until you have coloured the whole area in and added your extra shading that it really pops. You have to add your last layer of shading at the very end without blending it in.

I made a bit of a mistake on her pants and they got too dark on the left so I had to come in with some prismacolor pencils to lighten it up. Fortunately you can’t tell unless you are looking for it. :) I then decided to add some extra depth all over with the prismacolor pencils, just because. :) heehee

The shoes! argh they just kept getting darker and darker. They were meant to be more of a golden colour but they weren’t looking good and so more work was required thus they got darker. Oh well…

Copic Marker Colours:

Top: R22, R24, R29 & E19
Pants: B93, B95, B97 & B99
Hair: Y00, Y15, Y38, YR24 & flicks of E17, E19, E25, E37
Shoes: Y15, Y38, YR24, E19, E37

Prismacolor pencils
Reds: PC937, PC927
Blues: PC901, PC1102, PC1087

I would like to share this creation with the following challenges!

1. Just Magnolia – Anything Goes
2. Simon Says Stamp – Time to party / celebrate
3. Stampin’ B’s Design Team – Celebrate
4. Stampavie and More – Red
5. Incy Wincy Designs – Distressing
6. City Crafter – Stamp it

Thanks so much for stopping by today and as always your comments are much appreciated.

I have a new idea regarding questions, so if you have any questions just post them in the comments area and then in my next post I will respond to them! :)

Hugs and take care all

Zoe xxoo

Hi Everyone,

After my last post today, I became embarrassed after a few comments started to roll in. I honestly had no intention to what may appeared to have been ‘fishing for a boost in confidence’.

I feel so fortunate to have such a wonderful following. I receive so many glowing comments from you that I want to be able to ‘WOW’ you every time you stop by. My intention of my previous post had been to show that I am not ‘perfect’ for lack of a better word. I become so frustrated with myself when I know that I can do better and can’t understand why sometimes I struggle so hard to make a card work!

Sometimes I think I try to be what I am not and lose my own creativity in the process. So I guess that is a lesson I need to learn. :) Maybe that should be my personal challenge for next year! Find my own style and just go with the flow!

So I sat here and decided I would attempt to colour Tilda with her letters once again and this time make a simple ‘Zoe style’ card. :)

These simple design cards don’t intimidate me as much as trying to create all the layers and flowers and matching DP, glitter etc… They can have bold colours and the image itself can tell the story.

The bow probably took longer to get right than anything else on the card. heehee

Now the colouring. I definitely think the fold on the dress this time is better and it helps to give the perception that her knee is forward. However, whilst colouring this image again I realised that I don’t actually like the image. You all know I love Magnolia stamps but in my opinion they drew this one wrong.

The way the letters are positioned on ‘her’ right knee doesn’t make sense or I am just not picturing it correctly. It is as though the letters are cutting into her leg as they are neither in front of the leg nor behind.

And so I think this is where my brain had trouble trying to decide how to colour the folds.

OK to some of your questions and feedback!

Stephanie
I think the trouble I had with the folds is I had trouble imagining how the dress would fall over her knees due to the positioning of the letters. I have tried to colour again to show you the difference. :)

Chrissy
I practice a lot. It’s the colouring I enjoy the most. Sometimes I will just colour faces. Sometimes I will just play around colouring folds. Sometimes I just want to try a different mix of colours. My work 7 months ago was shocking and I think the turning point for me was relaxing, working on my light source and casing other people’s work I admired.

Comment without a name
Often cards I don’t like don’t get finished and find their way to the bin. All my other cards at put into a box unless I have made them for someone specifically. The problem however, is that after a few months I don’t like them anymore as I have improved since then. I just threw away about 20 cards that I knew I would never send to anyone. I did keep cards that had been ‘turning’ points for memories. :)

Vicki
I started with a couple of skin colours too. They are an expensive hobby. I don’t actually have as many colours as what many others do. I have the different colour families and I rely on the ability to blend colours together and rely very much on my greys.
I would suggest investing in some cool greys and then adding a light and medium shade of your favourite colours. Blues, reds for example. Then you can use your greys to get the extra depth without having to buy so many colours as you play. Plus you can use the cool greys for black hair too so you don’t need to get the browns straight away for hair. :)

Diane
I think you helped to clarify my point. With practice I have become good at colouring that each time I colour I want it to be better than the last time. :) And my pleasure. Always feel free to ask away and I’ll help where I can. :)

Can you believe that it is only 2 days until my one year ‘blogoversary’? Thank you everyone for all your encouragement. :)

hugs

Zoe xxoo