Alcohol Ink Card

A Sneak Peek...

This card is actually for a secret card swap but I don't think the person receiving it visits my blog, so it should be safe to share. The pretty background was coloured with alcohol inks, which are hugely fun to play with. Just be sure to use them in a well ventilated area as the smell does get to you after a while.

Flowered Canvas

Something to Share
I just wanted to show off a bit tonight!

I have some wonderfully talented friends who are also very generous with their time and knowledge, and to complete the package, they are great fun to spend time with! Anway, a few of them came over for a play date yesterday and this is what we made....

My dear friend Penny taught us how to make gorgeous patterned paper flowers. She then had us paint, stipple, stamp, spray and ink a canvas so we had a lovely background on which to mount them. I added some self-adhesive pearls and a few rubons to finish the project and then sealed the entire canvas with some spray matt varnish.

And this was only one of the projects we completed! I also have some gorgeous sheets of shiny card that have been coloured with alcohol inks and some with acrylic paint. I'm not sure what I'm going to create with them yet, but I'll definitely share it on my blog when it's done.

Ellie and Friends

Free Printable #11

Designed: 18.02.10
copyright Beccy Muir

Keepsake Box and Card

Baby Shower Time!!!

My brother and his partner are expecting their first child in early April, the first new baby in our family for quite a number of years. We are all gearing up for the happy arrival, with baby shower preparations well underway, and everyone frantically shopping for the perfect gift to give the new family. Being a crafter, I decided to make something that I thought would be useful as well as fitting in with the theme of their nursery.

My sister-in-law has decided to go with cute teddy bears and elephants, which I'm sure you've guessed by now, so in keeping with the theme I designed this cute little group of friends.

The keepsake box is painted with acrylic paints and then sealed with matt varnish to protect it from wear and tear. The image on the card has been coloured with water based colours and a paint brush.... isn't it interesting how different they look?

Raggedy Card

Thinking of You

...and here is a greeting card using the Raggedy Angel printable. I hope you can find lots of other uses for this whimsical little character.

Rag Doll

Originally Designed: September 2022

Original artwork by Beccy Muir, all rights reserved. Images are for personal use and must not be copied, swapped, shared, resold or mass produced without the express written permission of the artist.

"Be Mine" Greeting Card

Be Mine
A quick card using "Molly" (Printable #7) and an embossed background.

Simply Strawberries

Greeting Card

Here's a very simple greeting card using a coloured and cut out strawberry image (Printable #6), some diecut cardstock, a piece of white embossed card and four self-adhesive pearls. I think it would be perfect as a thankyou card or even an invitation to tea.

Strawberry Love

Strawberry Easel Card

Here's another easel card using the strawberry design (Printable #6). I am really enjoying making these cards... they're a little bit fancy without being really challenging to make, and what's not to like about that?!

Tutorial - Easel Card

I have been seeing lots of wonderful easel cards around lately so thought I would give one a go myself. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they are actually very easy to make and look fabulous, plus you can get as creative as you like with punches, shape cutters and die cuts for a variety of looks.

Instructions:

1. Start with an A5 card blank. Score and fold it in half as you would if you were making a normal card. Score and fold the front half in half again as shown below.

2. Cut another A5 card blank in half. This piece will form the front of the card and will be attached to the piece you folded in the previous step. You will attach it as shown below, after you have decorated it.

3. For my card I used my nestabilities to cut a large scalloped oval from patterned paper and a slightly smaller plain oval from a piece of white cardstock that I had embossed through the cuttlebug. (note: always emboss your cardstock before measuring and cutting to size as the process of embossing shrinks the cardstock slightly). I also printed a small greeting on white cardstock and cut it out with a nestability oval cutter, along with a slightly larger oval to mat the greeting.

4. Measure and cut two pieces of patterned paper that are about 1/4" smaller than your card blanks. Trim all the corners with a corner rounder for effect, and ink all the pieces of paper and cardstock if desired. Adhere one of the patterned papers to the inside of your card blank and the other to the separate piece of cardstock as shown below.

5. Mat the small oval greeting with the oval patterned paper. Use "pop dots" or foam tape to adhere the greeting to the inside of the card, centred, about 1/4" up from the edge of the patterned paper. This little greeting will hold your card open when it is being displayed.

 

6. Cut out your coloured roses ignoring the extra leaves that are not attached to the main picture. These can be glued on separately with a few pen lines added to keep them as part of the overall design (see picture below).

I added a strip of lace horizontally across the card, then layered the ovals and finally the roses. I used foam tape between the card and the ovals and also between the ovals and roses for extra dimension.

7. Add some self-adhesive pearls to the top corners of the front cover and to the bottom inside corners of the card. Glue or tape the front cover securely to the first part of the folded card. It will stand open for display but can still be closed for postage.

I hope you have the opportunity to make some of these easel cards yourself. Feel free to share a link with me too, I'd love to see what you come up with. Have fun!

Roses

Free Printable #9

Designed: 29.01.10
copyright Beccy Muir

Technique Class - Colouring Roses

Love Is In The Air

Valentine's Day is just a couple of weeks away now, so I thought I would design something pretty and traditional for all those hopeless romantics out there! You could, of course, use these roses for other types of greeting cards including birthdays, Mother's Day, or even a Get Well Soon Card.

This post is for those who would like a few tips on how I have coloured this design. You can find all the basics on the method I use to colour in the very first post I made on this blog titled "Technique Class - Colouring".

1. Print out the design on good quality, white cardstock or watercolour paper. Using the water colour method outlined in my very first post, colour the roses red. Don't worry too much about streaks or patchiness, that adds to the watercolour look.

2. Brush clean water over the entire rose dampening all of the petals. Working quickly, touch the areas where you want to highlight with your paintbrush and a little yellow colour. This will leave nice "sunny" spots where the light hits the petals. After adding the shading we will go back and strengthen these hightlights if necessary.

3. Using a darker shade of red, add shadows between the petals. If you don't have a darker shade of red, mix a little brown with the red you initially used to create a deeper hue. Remember that the shadows are always positioned opposite the source of light. (See previous post).

4. Use the red pen to add darker areas either with small dots or lines of colour. When you're done, brush some clean water over the areas you used the pen to help soften the marks.

5. Add a light wash of green colour over the leaves. If you are cutting out the design then you don't need to be particularly careful about staying in the lines.

6. Shadow the leaves. Remember that there will be shadows opposite the light source, but also below the flowers as you can see in the picture below.

7. Add a shadow along the veins of the leaves.

8. Deepen the shadows in three of four places with a tiny touch of black. Be careful not to make it too dark or to darken too many areas. You can now go back and deepen the hightlights if you feel you need to.

Technique Class - Light

Getting The Light Right

When colouring an image, it's important to take the light source into consideration so that you end up with an image that is not distorted by incorrectly placed shadows and highlights. Shading an object also helps to give it a three dimensional aspect that will make it appear to lift from the page rather than being flat. So what does that mean?
Basically, all you need to remember is that the light that hits your object will come from one direction, which determines where you place shadows and where you place highlights. Take a look at the leaf below. The sun indicates the light source and the arrow indicates the direction that the light will take as it hits the leaf.

The light will hit the leaf on the top side (the side closest to the sun), making it the correct position for a highlight (an area of lighter or brighter colour). We can assume then that the bottom side of the leaf (farthest from the sun) is where the shadow will fall (an area of darker or deeper colour).

Here is the leaf with the shadow added on the bottom side - the opposite side to where the light hits it. This is the general rule for adding shadows.

Shadows and highlights can also be used to add shape to an object. By adding a shadow along the vein of the leaf we effectively make that section recede giving the impression that the leaf is actually folded slightly.

You can use this technique to give shape to any object. For example, if you shade a circle around all the edges and leave a highlight in the very centre it will appear to be a sphere with the light source hitting from the front.

Try it with different shapes and objects and see what results you come up with.

Have fun!