Coloring, My Favorite Things Stamps

Masked Blended Background – Halloween Edition

Today it is all about creating a masked blended background with distress inks and oxide inks, using dies and stamps with masking paper to mask out the area. The card is finished off with stamps by My Favorite Things colored in the no-line coloring technique with copic markers.

For the card base I went with a square base measuring 4 1/4″ by 4 1/4″. The first part of the mask was cut with a stitched mod square die out of a 4 1/4 strip of masking paper, so that the mask can cover the card base and a little over to the backside as it will not be folded when I blend.

I also stamped a couple of the clouds and a moon from the Witch Way Is The Candy stamp set onto another piece of masking paper and then cut them out with my scissors. These I placed towards the upper left corner in a little arrangement of three.

Photo showing Halloween Card with a masked blended background, halloween images and halloween sentiment.

I did the blending first with the distress inks in the colors Festive Berries and Wilted Violet, but as I was working on Neenah card stock and I went in with a little to heavy hand I just couldn’t get a good blend, so I finally decided to just take out my oxide inks in the same colors and then just blend on top. The oxide inks are a little bit easier to blend and they are also more opaque so it hid a little bit of the original blending. I finished it off with some water droplets flicked with my fingers and then padded off with a paper towel, to add a little bit of texture.

I then finished off the outside with some fussy cutted images, that I had colored in the no-line coloring technique, fastened with some foam tape. And a stamped sentiment. For the inside I stamped a sentiment, used my left over images and then I added splatters as I accidentally gotten some ink on the inside while blending and though it would hide it a bit.

The Inside of the Halloween Card with Masked Blended Background is finished off with two left over colored pumpkins and a sentiment and then added some splattered inks.

You can follow a long with both the coloring and the card progress in the videos below. And under that you find links to all the products I used and a list of the copics I used to color the images. Hope you have a great day!

Copic:

YG01, YG05, YG09, G07
E42, E43, E44, E49
B60, B63
E04, E11, E21, E00, E50
R30, R32
E51, E55, E57
W0, W2, W4, W6, W8, W10, 100
YR16, YR18, E09, E08, E18

When possible affiliate links are used, this means that I receive a small commission when products are purchased through the links (at no extra cost to you) I use the money to support my blog and youtube channel. If you like my projects and tutorial please consider supporting me by clicking through these links when you shop. Thanks!

Supplies:

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?1559654439292
Coloring

How to blend markers

Do you want to learn more about blending with markers? Well I’m here to tell you all about it. I also have a video that shows you in more detail different kinds of blending and how blending really works.

I have had this idea in my head for months, I’ve been wanting to break down my knowledge about coloring into smaller easier to digest videos. Videos that is specially about coloring and not card-making. I love my card-making videos but I wished on more than one occasion that I could point you to a video that goes more in-dept on the subject of coloring.

But before we start coloring we need some good paper, as with most coloring mediums papers really makes the difference. For markers you want a dense paper with a slick surface, the ink still needs to be able to go down into the paper, so the tiniest tiniest texture is needed.

I have used Make It Colorful Blending Cardstock for years and I love it, however you can just as well use X-press It Cardstock which is the Copic brand or the paper that many of my fellow US colorists use, Hammermill Color Copy (the one with the frog on). You can use Neenah, but as it is a little less dense than the other papers it can be harder to blend and it can make the colors bleed outside the lines if you have a heavy hand.

All my little color ghosts from the Fab-BOO-lous Friends stamp set by My Favorite Things are stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. And the little letters are sticky letters from Create A Smile Stamps.

Let’s start with the Solid coloring, to get a good blend you need to learn how to get a good solid, well it will make it much easier anyway. The way alcohol based markers work is that they have an alcohol based medium with pigments in. The darker the color the more pigment. This means also the lighter the color the more alcohol, which also means that lighter pens will be juicer and easier to both blend and get a good solid with.

The trick is to go in a medium speed and make sure to overlap the previous line of ink with the new one just a little bit and before the previous line dries. This will help the pigment to even themselves out in the alcohol and will give you less streaks and a more even result. If your first layer looks a little splotchy, just add a second layer before the first has time to completely dry and you will get that even result you are looking for.

For the blending I card I decided to color in the same colors, but add one more pen to the combinations for every step. I usually tell you which markers I use, but as this more how to use the pens and less about that perfect color combinations I have chosen to leave them out.

I use one marker at the top and adding one per step to have 4 markers at the bottom ghost. The way I blend is to overlap the colors slightly, going from dark to light, and what happens is that the extra alcohol medium in the lighter pen will push the darker pigments a little bit further into the paper and make a the overlapping part be lighter than the darkest tone but darker than the lighter. The gradient isn’t perfect but the more pens you add the easier it is to get that smoother blend. Also the more contrast between the darkest and the lightest the more 3D like dimension you will get.

The last ghost card is all about cross blends, using a color from a completely different color family to add that little extra. The first column I used a marker that had the same value as the grey but a completely different color. Purple, blue, green and orange, in that order and then I did a grey blend with three markers on top. The most important tip with this kind of coloring is NOT to choose a color that is much darker, than the lightest grey. That will cause the alcohol medium in the lightest grey to push the pigment in the colored pencil, unevenly into the paper and that causes a very unpredictable splotchiness.

For the second column I used a marker from another color family as the shadow, always choosing a color that goes towards the cooler spectrum. From the top to the bottom, a Blue shadow with a green blend, a red shadow with a orange blend, a purple shadow with a pink blend (should have chosen a lighter purple though) and lastly a purple shadow with a blue blend. This causes a deeper more natural shadow however they can be a little bit harder to blend if you stray to far away from the base color.

The third column has two colored gradients just because it was fun. It is easier to work with lighter colors and I would recommend using grey to shadow with if you want to have some dimension to them. However I choose to just make the gradients. From the top Mint and Blue, Blue and Purple, Purple and Pink and the last one pink and green. Doesn’t the last one look like a watermelon? All it needs is som black/grey dots in the pink part.

Well if you have read this far, thank you so much for taking the time. I would really appreciate of you left me a comment telling me how you like the content and if there is something else you want to see either here or on my channel or on both.

Supplies:

When possible affiliate links are used, this means that I receive a small commission when products are purchased through the links (at no extra cost to you) I use the money to support my blog and youtube channel. If you like my projects and tutorial please consider supporting me by clicking through these links when you shop. Thanks!

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?1559654439292
Design Teams, Make It Crafty

Pretty little pumpkin

I just love fall! Christmas has always been my favorite holiday with the smell of pine and spices. But since Pumpkin Spice came to Sweden, surprisingly enough it was just a couple of years ago, curtesy of Starbucks, fall has slowly become my favorite.

Here in Sweden the leaves are slowly turning orange and red, and right now is that perfect mid stage where some is still green and none is brown. And even though I did use this very stamp last year. I felt I wanted to use it again. This time using the no-line coloring technique and also choosing a very different pumpkin color. Have seen these awesome different ones that exist in the states and decided that a greenish one would be cool.

The background is made the same way as last year and I combined it with another chipboard piece. This year I used a layered saying turning it into a friendship card fit for fall. I didn’t do a video this time around just cuddled up with my copic markers and let them lead the way. My absolute favorite part is the face, the softness of the no-line coloring and the added detail of the color pencil and white gelpen just made it pop.

I hope you are enjoying fall and all its bounty. Until next time I hope you have an awesome day!

When possible affiliate links are used, this means that I receive a small commission when products are purchased through the links (at no extra cost to you) I use the money to support my blog and youtube channel. If you like my projects and tutorial please consider supporting me by clicking through these links when you shop. Thanks!

Supplies:

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?1559654439292

Copic:

E50, E00, E21, E11, E04, R30, R32, G12, G21, G24, G43, G46, G94, G29, YG61, YG63, YR21, YR31, Y17, Y38, B60, B63, W0, W2, W4, 0