Day 1 - "A"

One of my favourite techniques is to take an image and add some doodling to make it suitable for a completely different occasion. I mostly do it for Christmas since there are so many simple items you can add, such as hats, lights or, in this case, baubles, which I added to the antlers of my animal image.

YOUR TURN: Create a card or papercraft project using the letter "A" as your prompt.

Click on the link below to add a photo of your creation to the challenge:

CLICK HERE

INSPIRATION WORDS:

Angel, accordion cards, a-frame cards, altered, aperture, A2, acetate, acrylic, alcohol ink, aqua, alabaster, almonds, apricots, apples, amethyst, antique, Arctic, animals, antlers

Stamps: 

Everything Papercraft - Doodling

Technically speaking, doodling is drawing that is done while your mind is otherwise occupied… a kind of absent-minded sketching that has no particular plan or expected result. When we talk of doodling in papercraft however, we’re generally referring to the addition of pen work that has a decorative effect.

Doodling is a great way to extend the use of stamped or printed images. You can add certain elements to a picture to make it suitable for occasions for which it wasn’t originally designed. For instance, in the image below, simple cat pictures were adorned with doodled elements that have a Christmas theme, making them usable on holiday cards and layouts. You can also doodle borders [TUTORIAL], embellish sentiments or even design your own little characters with a few strokes of the pen.

Everything Papercraft - Zentangle

The practice of Zentangle is considered by some as a meditative art that calms anxiety and increases confidence. Many proponents of the technique report the same feelings of peace and tranquillity experienced after mindfulness or deep meditation.

Zentangle was created in 2003 by artist Maria Thomas and her partner Rick Roberts, a former monk. Maria and Rick tell a wonderful story about the discovery of the technique when Rick interrupted Maria while she was illustrating very simple patterns in a defined area of an art piece. She reported feelings of total calm that Rick likened to a meditative state. Rick and Maria went on to develop the Zentangle Method, which many people use as a therapy technique and for relaxation.

Zentangle in papercrafts, is a method of adding decorative elements to defined spaces. It is often likened to doodling, since it is relatively free-form. All you really need to complete a Zentangle is a pen and piece of paper, but you can take the technique further and add colour, outlined images and even different mediums.

Hot Tip Tuesday

I recently found myself in the position of having the perfect coloured card stock, but without a pattern it looked too plain. I thought of adding some embossing or a splash of ink, but instead, I grabbed a pen and began drawing vertical lines spaced about 1/4" apart. I wasn't after perfectly straight lines, so I didn't bother with a ruler, instead using the marks on a cutting mat to give me a rough guide. Once my first set of lines was in place, I turned the card stock 90 degrees and repeated the process.

Day 4 - "D"

It's "D" day today, and for me that means doodling!

I love changing up my stamps, whether traditional or digital, to make them suitable for occasions other than the original design. One of the easiest ways to do that is by adding little hats or items of clothing, such as a bright red Santa hat.

I decided to work with the little mouse from the Odd Bods digital stamp set. He has a nice open space at the top of his head that's perfect to hold a warm and fuzzy Santa hat, which I sketched in with a pencil then lined with a permanent pen. A splash of colour from my Prismacolor pencils and my little mouse is all set for the holidays!

YOUR TURN: Create a card using the letter "D" as your prompt.

Click the link below to add a photo of your project to the challenge:

CLICK HERE

INSPIRATION WORDS:

December, decorations, Dasher, Dancer, Donder, Dutch-fold card, double diamond fold, diagonal tri-fold card, diamond glaze, die cutting, digital stamps, dimensional, dry embossing, distress ink, dark blue, deep red, doodling

Stamps:
Odd Bods
(due for release in December 2019)

Adding Penwork

Although the Painted Blooms set does contain bonus coloured images with a dark outline, sometimes it's just fun to have a little play to see what happens. Inking or doodling is a technique that you can use on any image to add a little oomph!

I've printed one of the pre-coloured images from the set onto a piece of smooth, white card stock. I'm not going to worry about following the shapes exactly, which would give a fairly rigid feel to the image, instead, I'm going to add short, curved lines that loosely follow the shapes within the image.

If you look closely at the card you can see that I also added some grey shadows to the right and bottom of each leaf and flower. This just gives the image a little more weight and substance.

Stamps:
Painted Blooms

digital stamps

Technique Class - Doodling Borders

Doodling is lots of fun... most of us do it without even thinking and sometimes we're quite surprised by the end result.  I think it's because we don't worry too much about what we're drawing, we just let the pen wander over the page without worrying if it looks right.

Doodling is also a great way to add borders to your paper craft projects.  The single, most important thing to remember about doodling borders is REPETITION.  What you draw doesn't have to be perfect, the pattern just has to repeat itself.  Let me show you what I mean....

 

 

I have lots of different sorts of pens, mostly because I buy them when I come across them.  I try to keep a wide selection of nib sizes so that I can create very fine lines right up to very thick, bold lines.  Different pen nibs will give you different results, so make sure you have a go with lots of different types of pens.  Oh, and you certainly don't need to purchase the most expensive brands... check out what the local newsagent or office supply store carries, you'll be amazed at their range.  (If you're a scrapbooker, make sure the pens you are using are acid free.)

 

 

Let's start with a little heart border.  For this I used a brush tip pen.

 

All you need to do is draw a "V"...

 

... then draw a few more.  I use a ruler to keep my hearts evenly spaced.  Don't actually push your pen up against the side of the ruler or your doodling will have a funny flat edge rather than being nice and fluid.

 

If you've spaced the hearts far enough apart, you can add some more doodling between each one.

 

I added a dot...

 

... and then a couple of dashes.

You will have noticed along the way that none of my hearts were perfectly symmetrical, my dots didn't line up evenly and my dashes were all over the place.  However, when you look at the doodling as a whole you don't see any of those individual imperfections.  When you go on to create a card with lots of other elements, the imperfections in your doodling are even less obvious!

 

This next type of doodled border is my favourite because it's so quick and easy and looks great on most projects.  All you need to do is draw a line.  Don't use a ruler and don't try to keep it straight.  Don't draw it too quickly and don't wiggle your pen around, just relax and draw.

 

Now draw another line over the top of the first.  Let it flow nicely, crossing and touching the first line you drew.  You can add as many lines as you like, even varying the thicknesses, until you are happy with the results.

 

Our next border is very simple but also looks great.  Using your ruler as a spacing guide, draw dots at regular intervals.  You can either use a nice thick pen to place a single dot or actually draw a tiny little circle.

 

Try it again with little crosses instead of dots, or squares, triangles, spirals... whatever you can think of.

 

Now turn your paper on it's side and again using the ruler as a guide, draw some long stretched out "S" shapes.  You can either leave a little space between them or actually touch them together.

 

Now you have a whole lot of simple doodled borders.

 

If you want to get creative or add extra embellishing to your doodled borders, go back and add extra little bits here and there.  For the two line border, I filled in the spaces with small diagonal hatch lines.

 

I added a couple of dashes between each "S" shape.

 

Three dots fit nicely between each of the little crosses...

 

... and it was easy to place a dash between each of the dots.

 

I used a fine line pen to draw a rough heart shape around each of the "V" shapes.

 

Let your imagination, and your pen, run wild to create your own unique borders on your paper craft projects.  It's lots of fun!  And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect... just repetitive!

 

 

Photos and instructions copyright Beccy Muir.

All rights reserved.