Author: craftybit

I had not one but two birthdays sneak up on me, and needed some quick and simple birthday cards. So I went to a clean and simple layout and just changed up the colors and stamps.

For the video tutorial I made the blue card, this was for my boyfriends brother, so I used the Lovable Legends stamp set from Lawn Fawn. Matched it up with some blue and brown copic coloring and some simple Distress Oxide Ink blending. Very quick and very simple.

The other card was for my grandmother, and because she is Swedish and don’t speak english I wanted to have a Swedish sentiment. I don’t have any stamps with that, so I’m using some Kelly Purkey/Simon Says Stamp Alphabet Stickers, these are real old one that I got in a Simon Says Stamp Card Kit back in 2012-2013. But you could use any kind of alphabet stickers. I spelled out “Grattis på födelsedagen” which basically means happy birthday in Swedish.

For focal image I’m using a flower from the For All Moms stamp set by Simon Says Stamp. And colored it with copic markers, placing it on the same kind of blended mid border as with the previous card.

Copic:

Nessie: B21, 34, B37
Ship: E40, E41, E42, E43
Flower: R24, R27, R35, R37
Leaves: YG63, G43, G24

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:

I love halloween and mermaids, so of course I had to make a Mermaid Halloween card! And the perfect mermaid for that I thought would be the What’s Up Kraken stamp. It’s from the Under the Sea Theme Bundle from Stamp Anniething. (If you want to see all of the stamps in the bundle I have a video of that HERE).

I had recently seen a video by Cathy Zielske (I think it was, can’t find the specific video right now), where she talked about spotlight blending. I have used that technique for years but it was a while ago.The video inspired me to play some more with it, and to experiment with my stencils.

Spotlight blending is when you blend behind a focal image or sentiment to “shine” a spotlight on that part of your card. Basically help the eye to be drawn to that place. In my case it also helps to ground the image, as a mermaid is a floating character.

To add some more texture and dimension to the card I decided to use a stencil in my spotlight. I found that the Crocodile stencil by Tim Holtz got just right amount of scaryness. I also added bats and some sequins for more texture.

For the coloring I decided to go for a darker and deeper color palette. There for I also chose to use black outlines, because I felt I needed a little bit more of a delimiter. I wanted to give her a darker skin tone as most of my mermaids have a light complexion, and I really need to change things up a bit.

Hope you enjoy the card, if you have any comments or questions, just write below. If you never wanna miss a blogpost from me, sign up for the newsletter in the top right corner of the blog. Thank you for coming here!

Copic:

Skin: E33, E35, V17, R22, R21
Eyes: E49, E59, E57, B63, B60
Body: V04, V05, V06, V09, BV13
Hair: BV00, BV11, V25, V28

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:

Being in the middle of a big office/craftroom redo, but I’m hopping in to share my latest Merman Scene Card Tutorial using the Under the Sea Theme Bundle by Stamp Anniething. If you want to see all the supplies in the kit you can see last weeks post.

Today I have three videos for you, decided to seperate the real-time coloring videos, both because I didn’t want them to be too long, but also so I could keep the energy up for the voice over. And then as usually I have a card tutorial using the images that I colored up.

I decided to use the just the Under the Sea Anniething bundle (almost) for this card. I still needed some papers, inks, markers and I could not not use my favourite rectangular die for the base. I wanted the scene to be a more traditional mermaid scene and decided to use the merman to hot it up, well all jokes aside, there is so seldom that you see mermans so getting one in the bundle made me really happy.

I really love the die cuts that came in the bundle, but as I wanted to do the no line coloring technique on the merman, I was a little worried that the black lines on them would be to stark. But then I remebered that Stephen had shown that you can heat foil the pieces! So i brought out my only roll of foil (there will be more, definitely) and my laminator. I actually did a whole test on what you can color the pieces with before laminating, that video will come up next week.

The card together really nice, don’t you think? I have a couple of more ideas to use the set with, they will be coming up here later on. Hope you enjoy the videos. What was your favorite part?

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:

I’m back making videos after a little hiatus, and I thought I start with a haul, showing you my latest purchases from Stamp Anniething. I found Stamp Anniething through Stampin Steve , he by the way inspired me to get back to crafting and actually helped me find my love for stamping again.

This is two orders, from April-May, but the combination of USPS delays, pandemic flight shortages and just probebly gotten forgotten somewhere, these didn’t arrive until August. This was no fault to Ann, the owner of Stamp Anniething who shipped my packages with in days of ordering!

Here is a little walkthrough of my two orders, and below you can find pictures of all products, and under that a little thumbnail list with links if you want to buy. Thank you for visiting! There is videos and cards coming up using these products, hope you will like them 🙂

Under The Sea Theme Bundle

Camping Theme Bundle

Assorted Shopping

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:

Hi guys! Today I have a quick tip video for you showing how to print digital stamps for the no-line coloring technique using pages for mac or google docs which you can use on any operating system. As I color most of my images in the no-line style I get often ask how to do this. I personally use photoshop but I also know that many don’t have that. So I thought showing you both pages and google docs would make it easier for more people to try this.

When I saw Barbara share about her Polka Dot Pals Freebie I just knew I had to have it and make a video about it. So in todays video I show you how to create a card with Polka Dot Pals Gemma and how to layer diecuts of the same size and shape to make the focal image pop from a very buzy background.

I love Polka Dot Pals and when I had to take the big decision to leave the DT team for Little Miss Muffet Stamps back in late 2016 I did it with a heavy heart. I was even more sad when Barbara closed the door to Little Miss Muffet Stamps a couple of years later. And I was equally happy when I heard that she had taken her Polka Dot Pals to Whimsy Stamps and I could start craft with them again. However due to economical constraints I haven’t been able to purchase any stamps yet.

It is looking a little bit better tho and after picking up Gemma (which is a freebie, have I told you that yet?!) and colored her up I now know that I have to make room in my budget for the other Polka Dot Pals.

I had so much fun, creating her face (she looks a little bit tired/sad tho, so next time I have to make sure the iris is a bit rounder) and picking out the colors. In the back of my mind I knew I wanted to use the Love Notes papers from Doodlebug Design so I tried to pick the green and red to match and a blue that could coordinate.

To create the card I actually didn’t know how it would turn out going into it. I picked out some papers from the pad, one of them had a bunch of tags. I didn’t end up using that paper, but the tag got me digging among my stash for different tags and settled with the Cross-Stitch Tag die by My Favorite things. It’s a one off, but after cutting out my papers I found that the papers in themselves didn’t have enough contrast between them. So I cut out another of the tags, this time in white cardstock, and layered it behind the other one at an angle. And there I got the contrast and the tag got visible and a perfect layer for my focal image.

Hope you enjoy my videos and the card. Btw I have a tiny tiny giveaway on the cardmaking video, more information in the video 🙂

Copic:

E04, E11, E21, E00, E50, R30, R32, B37, B24, B21, B63, B60, E53, E55, E57, E47, E44, E43, E42, E41, E40, N3, N1, N0, 0, YR14, YR14, YG05, R05, B26

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:

I’m back with another hair tutorial showcasing short wavy hair. I’m using the same stamp as last time to show you how you can really change it up and remove the ponytails completely! If you didn’t saw that video the stamp I’m using is the Stamp Anniething Social Distancing stamp. I have made so many cards with that stamp. So because this is remaking one I already done I’m sending this one of to one of you! Just head over to youtube and follow the instructions in the video to find out how!

The color combination I use is for a lighter red tone, actually looking quite natural. To figure out how to do the hair, where to lay the waves, how it would look naturally I went and searched on pintrest. I didn’t mimic one of my results particular, instead I used multiple images and studied how the hair looked.

Hope you enjoy the tutorial! And if you do please share it with your friends and family that it could be of use for, it would mean the world to me.

Hugs Marika

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:

Today I have a little quick tip video for you, how to clean and refill copic markers. The wonderful thing with copic markers are that they are refillable and you can switch out the nibs. So after buying your initial pens you can just buy the refills. A refill can fill up a sketch marker 4-5 times, and with a refill being about the same price as a pen you get a lot more coloring for your money.

When cleaning your pens I would recommend not using rubbing alcohol, isopropanyl or copic cleaning sullotion on anything other than the barrel. If you are going to clean the nibs or close to the nibs I personally only use the Colorless Blender Refills as they won’t interact with the pigment in a negative way.

When refilling your markers, to make sure that they don’t have to litle or to much ink you can use a scale to weigh them. Your marker with the caps on should not weigh more than 14g. Personally I don’t fill them to more than 13,6-13,8g to make sure that they don’t start leaking.

Hope you enjoyed the video!

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:

I purchased my first card kit in a long time, if you have been with me for a longer period of time you know that Simon Says Stamp Card Kits was a staple when I started out. I subscribed for a couple of years but when I started to get sick I had to cut out that expense.

But I’m slowly getting better a couple of years later and I know have the funds to at least by a kit now and then. I’m so happy I did with this, I love the color scheme, the stamps and I had a lot of fun with the watercolor pencils. I made a total of four cards using the preprinted floral watercolor cardstock sheets and you can follow the tutorial on all four cards in the video below.

Together with this video I have a GIVEAWAY! I will giveaway the four cards, one each to a entry and one person will get the slightly used watercolor pencils together with their card. To enter hop over to my youtube video, and comment which card that you would like to receive. I will draw the winners in a weeks time.

So for the cards, I used three slightly different techniques to color them and learned a lot about the pencils and how it was easiest for me to use them. I was happily surprised over the quality of the pencils. I own a couple of sets from before I found my love of markers, the ones in the same price class as these do not compare! The color in these are so much easier to work with and they do have more pigment in them. For the price they are really good.

The pattern papers have a beautiful color scheme and I can see myself using every sheet and they are perfect for spring/summer cards. I choose to use one of these here, but I have already dug into it to make more cards, here is one on my instagram. And finally the stamp set, I love the sentiments they are perfect for the strange world we live in at the moment and I will definitely use them sending out thinking of you /missing you cards in the next couple of weeks.

Hope you enjoy the video and the cards and I will be back soon with more content. Take care of you and hope you are staying safe. Big hugs!

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!