Finished Spring Flowers Card, Best Day Coloring Page and Started a Fox

 Hi There!

How are you doing this week? Hopefully, you are keeping cool and happy. 

My girls and I saw The Secret Life of Pets today with our friends (Hi Becky). Outside of the ads on tv, I had no idea what all was involved in the movie. I can tell you there were many places where I laughed and loudly. It's a good one. :)  Fun way to spend a summer's day. 

I was able to finish the card with the panel I watercolored the other day. I kept it pretty similar to Suzy's version. I thought about adding white dots with my gel pen, but in the end, didn't want to risk messing up the card, so I only added it to the petals on the one flower. I also carefully added some Spectrum Noir Sparkling Clear glitter pen to the centers of the flowers and on the leaves. I pulled out my Crystal Stickles and added that to the circles. The hugs die is from Lawn Fawn and I cut that from some glitter fun foam. The twine is Doodlebug. I used two colors. 

I also finished coloring the page from the Good Vibes coloring book. I even colored in the background! Eeep. I think it came out okay. I started to add some white gel pen dots to the scallops around the edge, but didn't really like that they barely show up, so that's all I did. I was kind of following the sample provided in the book but I also tried some shading and some different color combinations. I'm happy with it overall. 

And I started a new page in The Enchanted Forest. This is the fox. The same You Tuber that colored the squirrel colored the fox and I got the idea to try using my Koh-I-Noor pencils to see if I could get the soft smooth look that Maggie's Colours does. Um, I'm not being very successful. She uses 

Bruynzeel pencils and I don't own that brand. If you watch her videos, her coloring almost looks chalk-like and very, very smooth. My pencils show the tooth of the paper. I think that is the wax in them. I am liking the colors in the fox, but not really liking my coloring. It looks pretty rough to me. Oh well. I definitely have lots of pages on which to practice. This is as far as I got today. 

That's it from me!

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a great rest of the week. 

Hugs,

Jeanne

Vacation Pictures & Coloring Challenge

Hi There!

Hope you are having a great day. Last weekend we loaded up the family van and headed out for a road trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Steve's family lives there. While I had computer access, I didn't keep up with emails and blogs and stuff, so I am a bit behind on commenting. Just in case you were wondering where I was. 

Hope you don't mind a few vacation pictures. 

On July 4th we headed into downtown Sioux Falls to check out their sculpture walk. On the main street in downtown there are many sculptures to take in and buy, if you had the inclination and the money. We did this a couple of years ago and had a great time. They change the sculptures each year. I thought this one was really neat. Those are cat faces made from boat motor cases! Jessica is partial to kitties and she was enamored with this display. If you check out the link above, the picture on the main page is a bunch of books. Jessica really liked that one, too. :) You can scroll through the photos if you like to see sculptures. They were pretty cool. 

On the 5th, we drove to Walnut Grove, Minnesota. For those of you who may wonder why in the world we would do that,Walnut Grove is one of the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House fame) lived. My girls are standing on the bank of Plum Creek! We also saw the indentation where the dugout  they lived in was. The roof has long since caved in. We toured the museum, which had a couple of rooms dedicated to the television series. While fun, any resemblance to her life in the series was purely coincidental. The center area outside the museum is planted with plants that would have grown back when she lived there. So pretty. There were several buildings to tour, although not all of them had items directly related to her. There were a few other locations in town we could have gone to, but we were running out of time and it was really hot and humid.  I can now state that I have visited three of the towns where Laura lived. I've also toured De Smet, South Dakota and Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Happy Sigh!

We also visited the Sertoma Butterfly House and Marine Cove. Steve is the only one who got a hitchhiker this time. I just love how active the butterflies are in this place. Much more so than the butterflies in the Butterfly Pavilion here. 

And here I am. They had these "selfie stations" set up. Only, if you did a selfie with one of these signs the saying would show up backwards. Hrm...so one of the girls took this one of me. 

And that concludes the vacation picture portion of this post. Hopefully I didn't bore you. 

 We had a good time, but it's always good to be home. 

There is a 30 Day Coloring Challenge going on thanks to Kathy R of The Daily Marker blog. I love the idea of the challenge, but haven't really participated before. Today I made sure to sit down and do some coloring. 

Here's the first thing I worked on. It's not finished, but this is as far as I got. I just got this stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. I was inspired to make this from Suzy Plantamura. If you've not checked her blog, Living My Dream out, you should. She does a series of using one stamp set at least five ways. She also creates great coloring card fronts and sells them at Simon Says stamps. Anyway, I loved the series she did with this stamp set. I used Artist Loft watercolors. Artist Loft is the house brand Michaels sells. 

The goal of this coloring challenge is to do some coloring every day, it doesn't matter if you finish a project. I like that no pressure approach. 

I also started this page in a coloring book I've had for months. I bought it at Hobby Lobby, but I'm sure you can find it at other craft stores or online. Here's a link to the artist who drew the images. 

That's it from me today. I'm sure that this is quite enough. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great start to your week!

Hugs,

Jeanne

Make a Wish and a Squirrel!

Hello again!

Wow, I'm posting two days in a row. Go me! :) A card and another coloring page to share. 

First up, the card. I was inspired by this one made by Yuunson Hur. I really liked the rainbow ink blending and how the heat embossed candles stood out. And I braved flicking a little Martha Stewart pearl paint onto the card. I'm so nervous to do that for fear I will mess the card up. I really like the font in the word Wish. The stamp and wonky stitched die are from My Favorite Things. 

I realized after I posted yesterday, I've shown current pictures of Jessica, but not of Amy. Here she is doing 'the whip' after blowing out the candles on her cupcakes. Silly girl, but she has a bright smile on her face and I'll take that any day. 

I finished another coloring page from The Enchanted Forest! The image isn't quite as detailed as the other ones I've colored, so I was able to get it mostly done yesterday.  Maggie's Colours posted a how to video on how she colored the squirrel and I was really impressed with the soft colors and her blending skills. Even as a how to, her video goes quickly and I stopped it often. She used a different brand of pencils than I have, and they may have had a different type of lead. My blending isn't as soft as hers, but I really liked some of the color combinations. The leaves right under his cheek with the yellow, greenish color and blue really made me smile. 

Again, some of these color combinations I never would have thought of to try, so I am grateful for these videos to help me get out of my color choice box. :)

That's it from me today. I hope you have a great start to your weekend and a Happy 4th to all my American friends. :) Be safe. 

Hugs,

Jeanne

A Couple of Cards to Celebrate and a New Colored Page to Share

How is it the end of June already? Yikes! Before I know it, it'll be back to school time and my days of relaxing will be gone! I'm relaxing so well, I've barely made any cards! Ruh-roh. I've got a few things to share today though. :)

First up is a card I made after being inspired by this one by Nichol Spohr Magouirk. I thought it was adorable. I don't own any of those fancy schmancy watercolor pens, but I do own some watercolor pencils and that is what I used on this card. I also just used Lawn Fawn's Here's the Scoop set. I don't own the other one she used. Can you see the sparkle on the thanks? I added the new Spectrum Noir sparkle pens to my stash and am really impressed with how shimmery it looks.

Next up is a card that my daughter Jessica made for her sister, Amy, who just turned...gulp, 15 last weekend. Oh my word, now we have to think about all new kinds of milestones...like driving. Nope, not gonna do that just yet. I'm not ready. Even if she's chomping at the bit. LOL

Anyway, not that I am biased or anything, but I think Jessica did a fabulous job on the card. I showed her this one made by the fabulous Kay Miller and she was eager to get started. She modified it to have purple stripes as purple is Amy's favorite color. :)

Awww...sisterly love. 

I have been struggling to sit down in my crafty corner to work on cards because I've totally been bitten by the coloring bug. Thanks, in large part, to You Tube. I am awed by the coloring talent that is out there. I am also so thankful that they film and share how they are coloring the pages for all of us newbies to watch and learn. 

I want to thank you so much for the very kind and encouraging comments that you've left for me in regards to my coloring. They mean a lot to me and I am truly touched that you like what I color. I am not trained in art in any way. I struggle mightily to come up with ideas on my own. Give me a blank page, or an uncolored image, and I really don't know what to do. I have spent lots of time trying to come up with something appealing on my own from scratch and it is extremely frustrating for me. I just cannot do it. So, I copy. I see something I like and I try to recreate it and put my own spin on a part of it. It may not be a huge change, but I will do something a bit different that makes it more my own. But the inspiration is always from a source that is not me. That's why I never call myself an artist. I don't feel like I am one. I'm a copier for sure. And I always credit the project that inspired me. 

That being said, I saw this video on You Tube and fell in love with the colors. And I had to color the page using those same colors. You saw one of the combos on my bee page.

Aren't the colors so pretty? This dragonfly is in The Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford. 

The video is in three parts and I have to admit, the quality of the video isn't that great. She said in the comments that this was the only video that she has made that was of the poor quality. But I didn't really care. I set up my tablet at my table and colored along with her, stopping when needed. There is a third video on how she did the background and I didn't really like how it looked, so I opted not to add color to the background. I am very happy with how this turned out. 

I've already started another page. 

Hooked, I tell you. I am hooked!

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a happy day!

Hugs,

Jeanne

All Kinds of Coloring Fun!

Hi There!

On my last post, I shared a picture of seahorses that I had finished coloring in the Lost Ocean coloring book. I was deciding what I wanted to color next. Welll, Jessica and I had gone to the book store to see if they had a book she wanted and I can no longer resist looking at coloring books. Jessica tried to get me away from the table, but I just have to pick them up and flip through the pages. It's become a bit of a joke between us, actually. I spotted one that captivated me. And when I flipped through it, I came across a page that made me gasp. Then and there I decided the book had to come home with me. 

This is the cover of the book. 

Joyous Blooms to Color by Eleri Fowler. 

Look at the flowers and the butterflies. I am smitten. 

I chose to wait on coloring the page that made me gasp. I'm too afraid I'm gonna mess it up. The page I decided to color has a nice big bee front and center. It made me think of my sweet and talented friend Barb. She loves bees. :)

Here is the finished bee. Oh my goodness, I had so much fun coloring this. The paper of this book is like a smooth cardstock and my pencils blend SO nicely. I wanted to make the wings look iridescent. I wasn't quite getting the look I wanted until I added a bit of green. Swoon. Then I added some Wink of Stella. Oh my gosh. It's very pretty in real life. 

Here's the bee with the flowers around it colored in. Photo taken on a different day, hence the difference in lighting. 

And here's the finished page. 

I'm very happy with how it turned out. Jessica loves the peach looking flowers. I got that color combination from watching a colorist on You Tube. It's Henna, Peach and Light Peach in the Prismacolor pencils. I also thought about coloring in the center behind the bee, but that's a big space and I'm not that confident that I would do a decent job in that big of a space. Maybe someday. 

And here's some "coloring" of a different sort. My Jessica loves nail polish and nail art. She watches many tutorials on how to do different things with nail polish. She became smitten with an idea using glitter polish and liquid highlighter pens of all things. They look like regular highlighter pens, but the barrel says liquid highlighter. Anyway, take a look at the end result of her efforts.

Isn't that neat? 

I'm so impressed that she has the patience to do this. 

We've sure been having fun coloring these days. 

Gotta love summer break inspiration. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a great day.

Hugs!

Channeling My "Inner Kay" :) Hey Gillfriend!

Hi There!

I've got a card to share with you today that was completely cased from my good friend Kay Miller. Here's the one she made and below is my version. I can't ever hope to blend as well as she does, but I did try to channel my "inner Kay" as I created this. I got a huge assist from my stamping buddy, Jessica. :) She did all the coloring of the critters.   I think she did an awesome job. 

I did the fussy cutting.

I thought I'd share that I listened to people who say if you watercolor something, don't immediately trash it if it doesn't work for the project you are working on. I had a background done for months that'd I'd keep seeing and thinking, should I trash this? Well, I never did and when I was working on this card, I wondered if I cut that piece up, would it look good as the sea water? I think it worked pretty well and it's finally used up. ;) And, while you can't tell in the photo, unless maybe it you enlarge it, the white piece is glittered cardstock. Adding the purple fish is my last attempt at doing something a bit different-even if it might be a fish that doesn't belong in the sea. It's my fantasy world and I think it'd be just fine. Ha, ha! The rest of the design is all her creative genius. 

I also finished coloring the seahorse picture. Go me! 

Now the tricky part is trying to decide what to work on next. 

I have many books to choose from!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you are having a wonderful day. 

Hugs!

Fairy Friends Magical Day and Colored Seahorses!

Hi there!

We sure enjoyed our first week of summer break. It really had a low key feel. But next week, Amy will be volunteering at a STEM camp at the high school. It's the same event she participated in last summer, only this time she will be helping out. She's looking forward to that and also the start of marching band practice.  So, we'll be a tad busier. 

I have been working on doing some cleaning up around the house. The kind of projects I kept putting off because I didn't have time, or more likely, the energy to tackle during the school year. That's felt good. The weather was nice, not to cool and not too warm. I think this next week we are supposed to have a good dose of heat, though. The swamp cooler is up and running, so we should be able to stay cool. 

I've been checking out You Tube a bit more than I have in the past. My girls watch it constantly and while I've watched videos, they are usually the ones that I have been made aware of via blogs. I have never sought out a particular You Tuber and subscribed. Well, somehow, last week, I came across a video by Johanna Basford, the artist who has drawn The Secret Garden, The Lost Ocean and The Enchanted Forest coloring books(I own all three, but haven't colored in them much). I was captivated. She has a lovely accent and her studio looks amazing. She has done a tutorial on coloring the seahorses in The Lost Ocean and I love, love, loved the color combination. That inspired me to follow along and color the seahorses. I did the one on the left first last week and then colored the one on the right yesterday. I did it mostly the same, but changed a few things as well. I'm itching to color the rest of the page. Most likely after I publish this post. :) Anyway, I've been having fun subscribing to  and watching different You Tube channels.

This morning I watched a video on coloring a dragonfly...so pretty! 

This You Tube stuff could become quite the rabbit hole for me...much like Pinterest or Instagram, I'm sure. 

I also came across a card on a Lawn Fawn Flickr Friday post here and I fell hard. So much so that I had to recreate it for myself. I put a couple of different elements in it to make it more my own, but I stayed as true as I could to the color scheme. As close as I could using my pencils. 

I'm only sad that you can't really see the sparkle on this card. I've used Wink of Stella and the Stardust Gelly Roll pen  and it didn't get picked up on the camera. I tried it standing up above and laying down, below. 

Oh well.

Guess you'll just have to trust me that it's sparkly in real life. ;)

That's it from me for now. I truly appreciate you stopping by. 

I hope you have a great day!