Colouring with Promarkers

I've had a large number of emails from readers in the USA who have never heard of Promarkers.

Let me give you the lowdown:

They are alcohol markers (like Copics)

There is a range of about 148 colours

They hold quite a lot more ink than the Copic markers, so last longer

They are not refillable

They are a lot more reasonably priced - in the UK they sell for about £5 for 5, which is about $7.50 for 5

The US distributor is on a link from the Letraset logo on my sidebar

So here's a card using Promarkers to colour Gracie (a Polkadoodles stamp)

I used:

blush and soft peach (skin)

Apple green

Pale blue and blue pearl

Buttercup and sandstone (hair)

Pale pink and blossom

Orchid and blossom for the wings

Ice grey 1 for shadowing

Edited to say, in response to Debra, I have a set of Tombow markers, they are water based markers, similar to the stampin up markers. In my opinion the difference between alcohol markers and water based is considerable. The alcohol based markers lay down an almost transluscent coat of ink, that you build up and shade, so it is easy to get very professional results. I can't get the same results with water based markers, perhaps my technique isn't that great with them, but I don't find it as easy to shade and add depth as with the alcohol ones. You can get some watercolour markers now, also from Letraset I think, haven't tried those. I do like the sketchy effect you get with watercolour pencils, but since changing to alcohol based markers, I rarely use anything else now.........

The flowers were cut from the pattern paper using Tim Holtz tattered flower die, with a Craftwork Cards pale blue card candy button in the centre
I added some white gel pen dots to her cheeks and boots


Here's the Gracie I coloured for the video below - sorry about the phone ringing and pen dropping..........., she doesn't look TOO bad considering I coloured her in such a hurry!
In case you are wondering where her wings are - as seen on the card above, the wings come as a separate stamp in the set, so you can use them as butterfly stamps as well

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, I'll be back on Tuesday

Get Well Soon

My friend Lucy sent me a bunch of these Lili of the Valley stamped images, thanks Lou, I just love them. I covered the front of the card with kraft cardstock, then cut a square of pale blue paper and stitched around that - my little Janome sewing machine took me about 15 minutes to thread, shedding tears for my self threading one back in the USA. I cut a piece of a raffia weave, it's held in place by the image, which I mounted onto a nestability shaped piece of kraft paper

The sentiment was stamped in momento brick ink and is an Inky Antics stamp

I used my new promarkers. I just love working with them, I find the fine bullet nib much easier to deal with than the brush nib of the copics. They are readily available in the UK, but you can get them in the USA - HERE is the distributor who will be able to tell you where you can get them.
I used:
Blush and Soft Peach for the skin
Buttercup and Sandstone for the hair
Pastel blue and Denim Blue for the clothes
Vanilla and Honeycomb for the bear
Shadowed in Ice Grey 1

We are off to London tomorrow for a couple of days to see the family, I can't wait to cuddle those babies. Monty is feeding himself - see new photo on my sidebar. I think I will wear old clothes!

Summer for Polkadoodles

It was my turn to set the challenge over on Polkadoodles this week, and I chose a summer theme. This card is made with PD papers that I printed out from the CD All Around and Everywhere. The boat was cut from the New Arrival cartridge, and the sun from Doodlecharms. I printed the blue pattern onto white card, and tore it to form the waves.

Edited to say, I use the Georgia Pacific card available from Walmart to print out. If you want double sided card, well, just pop the cardstock back in to print the back

As so many of our friends in Florida are fascinated by the differences between Britain and the USA, I thought that if you are from North America you would be interested to see some of them here

It's a LOT more expensive to live here than the USA - gas is $9 a gallon, a good bottle of wine will cost you at least $10. Sales tax is a uniform 17.5% throughout the country, going up to 20% in 2011

Our climate is usually very moderate, we don't have extreme weather, no banks of snow in the winter, and the summer temperature is usually in the 70's, if we do have a hot spell, we all melt because none of the houses have air conditioning. Contrary to popular belief, it is not always raining here, and we don't have fog in the winter either - no hurricanes, or tornado's either, although there was a hurricane once, about 20 years ago, we still talk about it!

We don't have bugs as such, only house flies, bees and wasps, so in the summer you throw open all your doors and windows, and keep a can of fly killer handy to zap the invaders if they fly in.

We walk - unlike the USA where all the stores are generally in strip malls ours are all in town centers, so people wander down 'into town' on foot quite often, which is just as well, to park for an hour in my town centre costs around $4.50

A pub here is not really a bar, it's more of a social meeting place, you can sit and have a coffee in a pub, and pub grub can be really good, so a cross between a cafe, restaurant and bar really.

We don't consider anything to be old unless it has been around for at least 300 years - it is not uncommon for towns and villages to have a church that was built at least 500 years ago

None of our towns are built on a grid system as most towns in the USA, ours in the main follow no pattern, roads wind around all over the place, so you can't really go 'round the block'

The population of the UK is in excess of 60 million, all in a space not much bigger than the state of Florida, so we are pretty crowded, but once out of the towns, there are acres of green fields and country lanes with dog roses and queen anne's lace growing in the hedgerows, and yes, there are still thatched cottages to be seen.

We don't generally have 'afternoon tea' that tradition died out a long time ago, but if you are ever in London, be sure to go to Harrods, the Dorchester or Fortnum and Mason to sample a real English tea, including cucumber sandwiches and scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream

We can hop over to France for the day on a ferry or on a train if you don't mind being on a train under the sea (I do have a few issues with this and have never been on Eurostar)

Our stores don't have sales every weekend, and we don't have coupons in the Sunday papers either. We have sales to look forward to twice a year, January and July, in fact, they are on now, what am I doing sitting here waffling on about the UK when I could be bargain hunting....................see you tomorrow

Winner of CSN Stores Voucher and some 'spares'

The winner of the £60 ($60) CSN Stores gift voucher is

Fiona

Congratulations

Yes, you have won the voucher. Email me with your contact details, tell me what country you are living in, and I will forward them to CSN Stores who will be in touch with you. I hope you find something delectable to buy........you said you needed a treat, well, here it is

Would you believe I am covered in glitter (again) - I have been making some Christmas card samples. It all seems very bizarre, stamping out Christmas images in July.

I have been so busy with these, that I thought I wouldn't have a card to show you today, then I found a folder marked 'spares' with these two cards that I made for challenges last month, and didn't get them posted until they were on to the next challenge

This little miss is a stamp that is back in the USA, I THINK she is by Inky Antics. The papers are by We R Memory Keepers, and the sentiment button is by Craftwork Cards. I ran the blue strip of cardstock through one of those corrugator thingies - I don't know about you, but I can never get them to go through the rollers straight, so my ridges are always wonky

This one was for a Penny Black challenge, again, too late to enter it.
The scallop boders were cut using Plantin schoolbook cartridge on the Cricut


I embossed the pink card with swiss dots
That's it for today, back to work - oh, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.....trudging up to my crafty closet humming festive music and keeping an eye out for Santa as I go......
See you tomorrow

What's on my workdesk..........

No card today, and here's why, a parcel all packed up with my commission cards for Creativity magazine. I realised after packing them up that I hadn't taken a photo of them, not that I can show them until they are published anyway. So this is for What's On My Workdesk Wednesday

Here's something new on my desk, a little forest of Promarkers. I have been asked by Letraset to do a bit of work for them, and these are my lovely new tools. I need to start practising.....
If you haven't already been over to WOYWW, give it a whirl, it's amazingly satisfying to hop around blogs and see what everyone is up to, and so comforting to know that you are not the only one working in a total chaotic mess!

Off to finish a couple of cards that I CAN show you now...........will be back later with the CSN draw winner

Cheers!

Here's one I made just before coming back to the UK, I was packing my stuff, and found the Sparkle 'n Sprinkle frog which I haven't used for ages, so just had to make a quick card with him, the martini paper was given to me by a friend, thanks Debbie, although you can't see a lot of it. I went a bit mad with the stitching, I know I am going to miss my big sewing machine.......................

He was coloured with copic markers, I added a red gem to his olive. The white dots were made with a signo white gel pen. He really does look sozzled doesn't he?
Talking of sozzled..........when my son was at university, a crowd of them went to the pub before going on to a club. One of the lads fell off a wall (don't ask, I don't know) and hurt his leg. Edward and another friend gave him a firemans lift back to the university halls of residence, running like crazy because they only had 10 minutes to get into the club at student rates. So they crashed through doors, using this poor lad as a sort of battering ram, and dumped him on the bed, then ran like olympic sprinters to get into the club. It wasn't until the next day that they discovered that the hurt leg was in fact a bad fracture. The lad hadn't even yelped as they crashed him through the doors. Now this demonstrates two things, one, alcohol is a powerful anaesthetic, and two, it's best not to know what your kids are up to when they go to university
See you tomorrow

Bold Blooms

Well all my stuff is unpacked and put away, so I was able to make a couple of cards yesterday.

Here's a nice happy start to the week, the tulips were cut from the cricut lite Bloom cartridge at 4", and shadowed in black.................

The sentiment is American Craft Thickers, they are felt letters. Papers are by My Minds Eye, and the card was made from Gemstones card from Jo-ann. I added a few doodly black dots here and there. I really like these lite cartridges, the layering is superb on the three I bought.
So today will see me madly trying to complete a magazine commission, and I have some samples to make as well. I need to get them done so that we can get down to London to see those grandbabies. Mike and I went out to a garden centre, he parked the car whilst I dashed inside. When we got out I looked around and walked confidently to a dark blue car 'where are you going?' he asked. Yes, I had forgotten that our car here is dark green, the blue one is in the USA - my body is here, my mind is still somewhere Mid-Atlantic.

Kiki's Birthday Card, and a confession........

I have been busy unpacking all my stuff, so not in the creative swing yet, but I am able to share the full photo of the card I made for Scrappy Go Lucky's blog last week. It is for Kiki's birthday, she will be six at the start of August, so I am in plenty of time for this, as long as I don't lose it before then. ................

I drew Cinderella from the Happily Ever After cricut cartridge at 4" with my Cri-kit black glitter marker, hit the load paper button, changed to a blade, and cut again on shadow, then coloured her in with Copic markers. I really like the way she turned out, I think she looks far prettier coloured than having the features cut in cardstock. What do you think?

I put lots of bling on the letters, she likes glitter, and I have to prise the stickles from her little hands when she comes to stay with me

Now to the confession......................bear in mind, before you dismiss me as a total idiot/senile granny-type, that we do this transatlantic journey a lot, and one journey sort of melds into another in my mind.
All this is leading up to the fact that when we got back to the UK, I opened a cupboard and there was the missing carry-on bag. Can you believe it? I had never taken it with me in the first place!! Of course, as soon as I saw it, it all came flooding back - the fact that when we make the April journey, we are travelling very light outbound, and the fact that Mike hates that carry on, so I decided to leave it at home and buy another one if I could find one on sale in the US. Which, of course, I didn't do, as I had totally forgotten this complicated plan during three months of having fun in the sun.

Mystery solved...................... If I panic about not being able to find Kiki's card in August, can you all remind me that I have put it in the top right hand drawer of the chest in our bedroom. Thanks.....................:)

Funky Hand Challenge - Happy New House

The first of the month means it's time for a new challenge over at Get Funky. This month, the challenge is just that - NEW

so it can be a new baby, new job, new car, new beginning, new husband/wife/lover/cat/dog or just new house as I did.

The papers are all from the brand new CD Colour Me Happy, which will be released this month, there are some fabulous coloured ginghams on there, and you all know how I love gingham. The house was resized with one little click, and I dragged the bird across so that it was joined to the house, then cut it out in red gingham, which I had printed onto cardstock, and the spotty paper. The fence was cut using my Cricut (Lite cartridge, Bloom)

As usual, you have to use at least one Funky Hand product in your design. I often get asked about mailing costs from the UK, Anice gives FREE shipping to anywhere in the world. The winner of the challenge gets a £20 (about $30) voucher to spend at Funky Hand. You have a whole month to come up with a project as well. Good luck!

We have just arrived back, shattered, but had a good (boring) flight, and yes, it was 'chicken or beef'. It will take me a couple of days to sort myself out I think.

Want to win £60? - CSN Sponsored contest

I was approached by some very nice people from CSN Stores to see if I would like to give away a £60 gift certificate to one of my readers. Well I love offering you freebies, so I had a look at the site, they have some fabulous stuff on there - from lights, to tableware, to cookware. If you are in the USA or Canada, you would get a $60 gift certificate if you won, to spend on CSN's US site. So even though they don't sell craft stuff, how about a coffee maker for your craft space, or a really good light for your table?

To win, all you have to do is to link this post on your blog if you have one, and leave a comment here telling me what you would buy with your gift certificate. Do you think anyone would notice if a person called Enfys won? I would love that Jamie Oliver cookware. The winner will be drawn by random.org on Wednesday 7th July at 5 p.m GMT or thereabouts, (noon EST)

As you read this I will be 35,000' in the air, fighting a losing battle with boredom. I have tried everything on long plane journeys - even taking stamped images with me to colour, but it's just too difficult, I kept dropping the tops of the markers, then driving everyone around me crazy by ferreting around on the floor for them. So I shall sit and read, and look forward to the rubbish food, which I always eat because I am so bored, and it's something to do. It's always the same choice of food as well, just cooked in different ways (we always use the same carrier). 'Chicken or beef' the cabin crew chant as they trundle down the aisle. When you ask 'what sort of beef? 'Lasagne' 'what sort of chicken?' 'stir fry with rice' Now it seems to me that their life would be so much simpler if they chanted 'lasagne or stir fry chicken' in the first place, to deflect the questions from awkward customers like me. No, the missing case has not appeared, very mysterious and strange

Farewell to DD

Just a quick card today, I bought this coffee set by Inky Antics at Orlando's Stampfest, I don't know if you can clearly read all the sentiment, it says

Just Keep me caffeinated

and we'll all be a lot happier

As Dunkin Donuts has given us all such a laugh whilst I have been here, I made this card in DD colours - bright pink and orange for those of you who have yet to sample the joys of a large iced caramel latte, with whippped cream and extra caramel..........................................................

I have spent most of the day today looking for my carry on wheely bag, and I swear it is nowhere in this house. Every spare inch has been searched, and it is not a big house with lots of hidey holes. How can that happen? How can I lose an item of luggage without even taking it out of the house? It's a total mystery. Sobering thought, perhaps I am the nutso, not all the DD characters I have met on my travels! Have you ever had that feeling when something inexplicable happens, and you rack your brains to try and solve it, you really do think you are going crazy.

See you tomorrow

Tilda and Bloom

Here's another card made with that fence from the Bloom lite cartridge. This time, I used it as a perch for Tilda, who was coloured with copics then cut out. The fence was cut at 3" and shadowed in taupe. Papers are by My Minds Eye.

I cheated and gave her a nose! some of the Tilda images are just too much for me with no nose or mouth. I heard that the concept is that they are all angels, and angels speak with their hearts not their mouths. Seems a bit far fetched to me, but there you go, mine has at least got a nose.
I am so busy here, trying to pack a quart into a pint pot............one suitcase has already made the journey up to the supermarket to be weighed, luckily it came in at a few pounds under - I soon fixed that by stuffing more craft stuff down the sides of the case
I was doing a last minute shop, one place I was in was quite quiet, and I had a little chat to the checkout person. She was asking about my accent/where I lived/how long I was here for..........the usual questions. I said I would be back in the UK on the 1st July. 'oh good' she said brightly 'you'll be back for the 4th then'. Well, yes, but we won't be celebrating a whole lot over there!

TPE Challenge - Pink and Black

the Pink Elephant challenge this week is Pink and Black, so I came up with this card. The birdcage and bird are from the cricut lite cartridge Bloom, cut at 4" in black, and shadowed with white.

I added a tiny spray of white roses which I swiped with a pink copic marker to add a tinge of pink. I left the card blank without a sentiment, as it comes under the 'useful for so many occasions category'. In case the lady from Starbucks who takes her caged bird out for a coffee is reading this, this one's for you honey.

I am beginning the big clean up/packing marathon ready for our return to the UK next week. I went out for dinner with my Thursday craft group, we all sit around making cards for about seven hours each week, and they had gone out and purchased a shop card which they all signed for me. Lovely thought gang, and much appreciated, but, ermm, what exactly are we making all those cards for every week? Mind you, they did write 'handmade card' on the envelope to try and fool me........................I will miss them and our Thursday get=togethers when I am back in Blighty.

Summer Holiday for Penny Black, and WOYWW

This week, the Penny Black challenge team have a theme of travel/vacation, here's what I came up with. The papers are by Mambi

I layered three buttons on top of each other, a huge yellow one, then orange, then a small pink one on top

I am joining in with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday again, although you will have a fit when you see it.......
Not on my desk, but as close as I can have it without it blowing all my stuff away is my fan - I craft in the garage here in Florida, and it is HOT
and here's my desk, what can I say. I am a messy worker. There are a couple of project hiding on there that I can't show yet, they are for a magazine



Okay, so I thought yesterday that my dunkin donuts outings were getting ridiculous, so I switched to Starbucks. I sat next to a woman who had a bird in a cage - why? I have no idea why she would take a bird out for coffee. It wasn't a parrot, lovebird or canary or anything pretty, just a rather sad looking plain brown little bird. This constant exposure to rather odd people is very exhausting, I am so busy thinking.............why? what if? where? every day, I need a nap when I get home

Happy Birthday Gwendydd

Today is my sister's birthday - Penblwydd hapus cariad (that's Welsh for happy birthday)

Here's her card. I used one of the new cricut lite cartridges called Bloom, and cut the gate at 3", shadowed in black.

The little boy is a stamp by Art Impressions, I thought he would look cute peeping through the gate. I traced around the shape of the gate and cut out the front of the card, then covered it in green paper (all papers Colorbok). I then cut an arch out at 5" for the inside of the card

I added a brad for the handle of the gate
I then flipped the gate and cut another one for the inside...............


the sentiment oval is by Craftwork Cards

I am really pleased with her card, unfortunately she will not get it in time - I spent ages doing it, put it in a padded envelope, took it to the post office and jumped through all the hoops - customs forms in triplicate, airmail stamps, etc etc. Yesterday, it was returned to me as 'undeliverable'. I don't think it had left the US, so some hapless mailman has been scratching his head wondering exactly where Worcestershire is in the USA. So it will travel back with me next week, she will just have to have another birthday celebration then.


Here is a sneak peek at Kiki's birthday card - it's not her birthday until August, but I made this one early, and I think she will love it. To see the card go to Scrappy-go-Lucky yes, I used the pens again

I'll be back tomorrow, have a great day - it's the first day of summer today

Burger King and Stampfest Video

This card is for my son, who has a birthday on Saturday. He is a bit of a whizz when it comes to a barbecue, so when I saw this cute stamp at Stampfest, I had to have a play with it. I was going to say BBQ King on the front, but then I thought that Burger King was a punnnier sort of sentiment.

The stamp comes as a double, the bottom of the BBQ, then the lid........................................

Which you just slot into the bottom, lifting it up to show the food.....................................
and a happy birthday message. Isn't that a neat idea? I found the tiny wooden utensil in a pack at the show too, and cut a teensy triangle of red gingham paper to look like a picnic tablecloth. I covered the BBQ with glossy accents to make it look like shiny metal



Here is the video I took at the show, a bit wobbly, no commentary apart from two women at one booth who were having a good old chin-wag the whole time I was filming, but it will give you an idea of the booths and the sort of stuff they were selling. I see that blogger now puts loads of tiny little links to videos on the bottom of my post, I don't know who made them at all, who knows, they may show you more than mine did :)

Cool Cat

Here's another cat card, made with the cricut lite Meow cartridge. You cut her perched on the piano keyboard, isn't that cute? I cut at 4", base in black, then the white keys, then the top layer of the face, again in black. The pink background paper is Bazzill embossed spots, it doesn't photograph well.

I gave her a bling collar...........

I had a great time at Stampfest yesterday, I have never been to a craft fair in the USA before. I had lots of basic stuff on my shopping list - bind it all wires, Tim Holtz foam inking pad refills and so on, I was able to get them all, plus quite a few stamp sets which will be getting an inking very soon. I took a video, which I need to upload, and if it is any good will put it on here tomorrow - I thought my UK blog friends would enjoy seeing the booths here. I was very taken by Inky Antics stamps, and a company called Darcey, which I had never heard of, they did the loveliest decorated shadow frames, and some unusual stamps. The Tim Holtz booth had some gorgeous samples - I am not at all into the grungey side of altered art, but these were just downright pretty

So, watch this space, off to do a bit of editing now, see you tomorrow

Cri=Kit pens winner

Without further ado, drum roll, I did the random number thingy, and the winner of the Cri-kit pens is

SANDRA (Misty)

Congratulations Sandra, email me with your address and the name of the pens you would like, and Scrappy-Go-Lucky will get them sent to you

I don't have any new cards to share today, well I do, but I forgot to take a photo of them until the light had gone, so I am posting full pictures of some of the cards I made for Craftwork Cards - I only posted a sneak peek before, and I know that not everyone can follow links. Sorry if you have already seen them, just scroll quickly past the photos :) Here they are.......................

I am off to Stampfest in Orlando for the day today, I will take my camera and try to capture a few things for you

Another Dunkin Donuts story - you are not going to believe this one, but I couldn't make it up. Sipping my coffee, all alone, there was a young man, mid twenties I suppose, hanging around the parking lot. After a while he came up to me and asked if he could borrow my phone for a quick call, his had run out of minutes. So I started rummaging in my handbag (not a easy job, I keep a lot of clutter in there). No phone. 'I must make a call' said the worried chap ' I am donating a kidney tomorrow, and the person who is getting the kidney is coming to collect me here. She's late, I am worried she won't come'

Not much danger of that sunshine, I thought. I mean, if you need a kidney and someone is offering one, you would hardly need to make a note in your diary would you?

With that, a blue car screeched into the parking lot on two wheels, a very healthy looking woman hopped out, he got in the car, and away they went, to meet their fate together.

As I said, I couldn't make it up!

Polkadoodles - Father's Day

Over on Polkadoodles this week, the challenge is simple, make a Father's Day card. As usual, I was running around with a hundred things to do on the old 'to-do' list, so I made this simple card. All the papers are from the Not for Girls CD, I love that script paper printed with the Queensbusy rules of boxing, so used that for my background, and stitched around it.

I cut the boxing gloves out three times, decoupaged them and added glossy accents for a bit of punch (pun intended)

I used one of my favourite techniques for the hook, insert a brad 'backwards' through the paper, and curl up the prongs to make a hook. This can work really well on fishing cards as well......................
Dad was done with shiny black letters by Papermania

Be sure to pop over to Polkadoodles to see what the rest of the team came up with this week.

Call back tomorrow to see who won the Cri-Kit pens, Scrappy go Lucky will be announcing the BIG winner of the blog hop too. See you then

Hang in there.....................

There are 24 new cricut cartridges, exclusive to Walmart, so of course, I have been haunting Wallys until I found them. I bought this cat one, simply because I rather like the cartoony type cuts. Here's the first card I made after breaking two nails, a pair of scissors and a knife to get the packaging open

The cat and washing line was cut at 4", papers are by We R Memory Keepers, and the sentiment stamp is Studio G.

Still melting here...............we had a thunderstorm this afternoon, I was on the phone to a friend in the UK, when there was a massive clap of thunder and the phone went dead. When I called her back I said 'did you hear that? It was thunder'. 'Oh' she said casually 'I thought your house had been hit by a tornado'. Luckily, it did rain a little and that has cooled the air a bit - coming from the UK, I never, ever thought that I would say that I was pleased to see the rain.
See you tomorrow