Monday, June 30, 2014

Make it Crafty Coloring Challenge #10

Cutting it close with this one. Last day of the month posting....It's been a crazy month with the kiddos last few days of school just last week. I managed to squeeze in some time to do some coloring for the new Make-it-Crafty's  coloring challenge.  In case, you missed my posts for a few months you these coloring challenges are a fun way to challenge or work on your coloring skills.

So there are two different challenges, a hard and an easy one.  This month the hard is coloring curly hair and the easy is coloring with pink and brown.  Because I was on such a time crunch this month I opted for the easy one.

Lets see....I started with two different digital stamps from Make-it-Crafty.

Here's the first: 
 

And the second was:

Sitting Annalise Digi Stamp


I chose these two images because it was also "something girly" (the challenge's title, and the Facebook group challenge.)  As a little girl I loved to swing, and so do my daughters, so I thought this would be perfect to do as something girly.




To make the final image I took the two into Photoshop; flipped Annalise, rotated her a little to line her up with the swing and removed some of the daffodils to come up with my final image.  I held off coloring until my new favorite color pencils arrived, Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. This was the first image I colored with them and I'm in love.  They blend beautifully and lay down easily, by far the best pencils I've used.  To top it off all of Faber-Castell's lines match so you can use markers, pencils and watercolors with ease. So excited to do more with their products.

Any who....I used my finial colored image to alter a medium sized Moleskin lined journal.  Added some new Prima Marketing Inc. flowers to it.  Throw in some papers, Tim Holtz Distress Stickles, glitter, metal frame, Silks paints, leaves and a fun inspiring saying and you get the finished journal.  By the way the cute little saying is "In a sky full of stars it's amazing to find that each is one-of-a-kind."

I hope you like it...

 





Tuesday, June 10, 2014

My Comic Book Book - Lady Mechanika

My Comic Book Book.....This book took me a bit of luck to make.   When I found out that my husband was going to set up a Hartford Comic Con I decided I was going to make a book for it.  I  wanted to make the book from one of my favorite comics out there, Lady Mechanika.  I did not want to use one of my many copies of the comic so I had to find a book that was a duplicate to one that I already owned.  (Yes, I am one of those people who collects the many different covers.)  That was not an easy feat.  The book is very hard to come by now, so it took some calling, driving to different shops but I finally found one about an hour from me.

The book started out looking just like any other comic book. I was a little worried to take the comic apart and use it, afraid I would mess it up some how, either gluing or cutting it.  One mistake would lead to a very frustrated and mad me.  Needless to say with all the worry I took my time with it.

Over all the book took me just over a week start to finish including the pressing and drying times.  The front cover of the book is the front cover of the comic.  The signatures are surround by the cut interior pages of the comic (I wish I could have kept them full size.)  I kept them in order so you can at least read the first pages of the signatures in order. The interior pages are the Toned Gray Strathmore sketch paper.  The back cover of the book I took the Recollections Clocks paper and water colored it with some Tim Holtz Distress Stains.  I Coptic stitch bound the book with some variegated brown and beige cotton thread that I waxed with local bees wax.


My Lady Mechanika comic book book!

Back and Front Covers.

Inside the Front Cover.
Inside Pages.
I brought the comic book turned sketch book to the Con with me.  Joe Benitez, creator and artist for Lady Mechanika, was set up there as well.  I was very lucky to be able to get him to do the very first sketch in the book.  <3

So now the book will be traveling with me to shows and cons, when ever I can get to them, to have others do sketches in it as well. I'm thinking a steampunk theme is in order but that was apparent from the start.




Monday, June 9, 2014

Recollections Washi Crafting Tape - Review


I have to say right off the bat that this is one product I am seriously disappointed in.  I found a couple of the tapes that I liked and had some wonderful ideas for them but now they just sit all sad on my craft table.
Those are the two tapes I bought.  I had some really great ideas of ways to use them.  The back of the package say that the tapes are "repositionable" and "ink-friendly."  This is unfortunately not true.  The butterfly one was going to be inked and used on the edges of a book.  However this did not go as planed.

 Below is the corner of the book that I had to scrap because as you can see the tape is not re-positionable.  It peeled away a layer of the colored cardstock when I went to go move it.



Thinking that maybe it was just the cardstock paper - mind you it was a double sided piece, so it was not a cheap piece of paper to loose out on - I decided to test a different piece of paper.  This is just a scrap piece of paper I had laying on my desk.  I laid the small piece of tape on it, gave it a gently run over with my finger and then tried to gently peal it off.   As you can see that did not succeed with out peeling off some of the paper.  So this tape is far from re-positionable.


Okay so it's not re-positionable. You say you can live with that as long as you are careful when you place it.  Inking it still gives you plenty of options.

So lets try inking this tape.  I laid down a small piece of tape on a piece of scrap paper.  Brought out my Tim Holtz Distress Stains and multiple ink pads.  The results are the same no matter what you use, the ink beads up and none to very very little color is absorbed.  "Ink-friendly" it is not.

I am very disappointed in these tapes. I really liked the designs on these tapes and had such hopes for them, but they let me down.  They advertise to be re-positionable and ink-friendly neither of which is true. I kind of feel like I wasted my money. :( Here's to hoping I'll find a use for these the way they are.