Birthday Ian

Good morning everyone.

It is my Mad for Markers day

so I am here to show you a fab stamp that is now

available in store right here.

This is Birthday Ian. I must admit that I am not

very good with boy cards even though I have two boys

myself. Will have to make an effort. LOL.

I used the sketch from Sketch Saturday

for this card. What do you think..???

Enjoy your day.

Markers used:

Skin: E00, E11, E02

Shirt: Yg0000, 00, 01, 05

Hair: E50, 51, 53, 55

Jeans: B91, 93, 97

Banner: V12, 15, 17, YR20, 12, 14, Y11, 18, 26, YR14.

Shoes: R24, 29, W5

Shading: W5, W3, blender

Annie

Meet my new baby girl named Annie (my little missy named her). She is made from synthetic faux fur with the Tooti pattern I purchased from JennylovesBenny minus the rabbit ears. Her face is needle felted. I was going to use the black nose on Henry (my other bear) but thought it was too dark for his face. I didn't do much shading on her face as I am yet to master that. Hoping to be able to have a fun afternoon at Bear Essence in Tooradin this Saturday and learn some new things - like how to ladder stitch properly.

Unfortunately her left arm fell off. I think I used the wrong sized disc to attach her arm and for some reason it ripped right through the fabric. Goes to show that these bears are definately only for show and not for children to play with. I had to reattach her arm with dental floss so now it doesn't move how it should - I nearly cried. LOL.

What do you think...???

My completed bear

Phew...!!!! Do you know how relieved I am that I have completed this bear...?? I must say I put a lot of work in to this bear. Ahhhh so glad I am finished. I have no idea how other bear makers felt when they first started out making their gorgeous creations but as happy as I am that I have completed this bear and he is cute to boot I am not happy with the overall finish. I think his body is too big for his head. I was going to go for a smaller body but thought that would look funny but not impressed. Oh well. Practice practice like any craft. The head pattern was from Jennylovesbenny and the body was from a pattern by Karen Alderson. So many talented people out there.

Here is my dear bears face. I cut the stitched nose off and needle

felted another. I like this one much better.

The head is attached with a wobble joint.

What do you all think...???

No lines

So sorry I have been MIA lately. I have been concentrating on making a few bears. Yes I know. My new obsession LOL. I promise that I will have some cards for you next week or at least a few completed bears to show you - I have 4 going at the moment. I am a typical Gemini. I will finish them though.

Over at Zoe's Make It Crafty FB group a challenge was set a little while ago to colour an image but light coloured ink so when it is coloured it looks like it has no defined lines. OMG you wouldn't believe how hard that truly is. I really do rely on those black lines but thought I would give it a go. Now I am fully admitting that this is not good. I need a lot of practice but it is my first attempt and possibly my last LOL. We will see. Anyway. I stamped the image out in pink Memento ink.

Been dealing with some issues with Tyler and some 'bullying' - but not in the traditional sense. He doesn't think there is much wrong but what is happening is and it is upsetting and downright cruel to all the kids that are copping it. A word will be said to the teacher tomorrow as I am sure it will continue - not just to Tyler but to the others in his class. Crossing my fingers that I don't cry or get too emotional when talking to her about it.

Needle Felted Bear Face

Afternoon everyone. What a wonderful Spring day it was here in Melbourne. My gosh it was so nice. I had a girlfriend come over and hang out and gossip with me. It is always so nice when you have one of those days.

I have something to show you. Most people who make bears use the usual mohair fur to make them including the face. I personally love the look of the needle felted faces. They bring a whole new character to a bear so I thought I would give it a shot. I must admit for my first attempt I did a pretty good job of it. Now on to making the body and sit it somewhere where I can admire it. Here is the progress in photos.

The face pretty much bare with a bit of wool felted on it but

completely flat.

Sculpted cheeks, nose and mouth.

Wasn't happy with the nose (made it look like a

monkey) so I changed it by adding more wool.

Altered nose, eyelids and copic markers used.

Nose done, ears sewn on.

What do you think....???

I seriously need to work on the nose but thought

he looked pretty good.

Oh my 1000 Sheets giveaway

Look at that paper. Do you wanna win it.......??????? Well it is easy peasy as the gorgeous Amy said - pop to this post here and find out how you can win 1000 Sheets of paper and much much more. I am excited.

SSS121

Morning. TGIF. I can't believe it is the end of the week already. Gosh the time flies.

I have a card made for The Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #121. I used this gorgeous image from Mo Manning. She is too cute.

Have a great weekend.

Been working on a few bears at a time so have none to show you at the moment. Hopefully I will have a good one to show you soon.

Friday Sketch Challenge DT call help

If any of you are interested in being part of the

new Friday Sketch Challenge please put your name down

in the linky at the blog.

I really would like more girls or boys on the team so if

anyone wants to do a call out on a blog post I would

really appreciate it.

Shades of Grey and Green

Good morning everyone. Hope we are all having a great week. It is hump day so that means it is my day to post at Mad for Markers. I thought I would have a play with my new stamp from Crafts and Me and use lots of Green but a little grey and brown too. She was amazing to colour and she has Clear Spica on her wings but as always it did not come out in the photo. I used the above sketch from Stamp with Fun for this card. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Copics:

Skin: E000, 00, 11, 02

Hair: E50, 51, 53, 55

Wings: E70, 74, 79, C1, 5, 7, 9

Clothes/socks: G20, 21, 24, 26, 28

Shading: B0000, 000, 00,

Shadow: C3, C1, Blender

Dried leaves: E53 (couple of times).

1002 posts eeeeekkkkkkk

First before I get in to my card - I noticed when I came in here to do this post that I had 1001 posts woot which means this is 1002. Wow. Who would have thought. Been busy and only been blogging for over just over 2yrs so that is more than one post a day. Woot. hahahaha Not obsessed with blogging much.

Anywho. Here is a card I made for the Sweet Stop sketch for the 6th Aug. Oops. I got so busy doing my bear making that I forgot to post on here and thus enter the challenge. Naughty me. The image is from Mo Manning. Gotta love it. Kind of a modern version of Snow White I reckon or maybe I am still in fairytale mode.

In person news I started the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation challenge. Hoping to get spurred on to get some more weightloss going. Wish me luck as I really do need it. At the moment it is only the preseason - we don't start officially for another 4wks but I am getting stuck in to it now. If you want to read about my weightloss journey go here.

Mini bear completed

I completed my needle felted bear. Can you tell my little girl Ashley loves it....???!!!! LOL. It is very small as you can see. Love it. Love how it turned out. Now back to some card making and then we will be right.

My new bear friends

Phew I tell ya it has been a while since I did some cardmaking and I am sorry but this is the reason why. I bought a kit for the Kringles bear at the bear shop called Bear Essence which can be found in Tooradin (if you are in Melbourne). My 6yr DS wants it coz he thinks it is cool and my DD wants it coz she is the one who chose it for me. LOL. The Tooti rabbit was a pattern I got from Jennylovebenny. They aren't that good but better than I expected them to turn out. At the very bottom is my mini needle felted bear in progress. OMG I am addicted. You can see how small it will be - hence why I took the photo on the cutting board.

Meet Kringles

Meet Tooti

This cutie is going to my next door neighbors

DD who turns 11yrs old today.

Friends

Mini bear

This mini bear will be joined together with

dental floss. Yep you read it right - dental floss.

Will have pictures for you tomorrow when I finish it.

Will be with you shortly

Gosh I have been a bit distracted. Sorry I haven't posted most of the week but have been busy making a bunny rabbit for my next door neighbor's DD who turns 11 tomorrow. I did complete my other bear and will show you as soon as I have made his overalls for him. LOL. My DD 3yrs thinks that he should be her's as she picked him out. Bless her. The kids seem to love the teddies I have been 'trying' to create. So I will be back in the next couple of days with photos of my teddies and hopefully at least one card.

This mini creation is by Fiver and gosh I don't

know how she does it but her creations are

amazingly small. Check them out at her

blog here.

Friday Sketch Challenge DT call

Morning all. Just doing a shout out to everyone to see who would be interested in being on the DT for the new Friday Sketch challenge that I started. Please pop by to the blog when you can and start following the blog. I will be putting up details very soon on the specifics of the new challenge. At this stage the DT will be split in to two teams so that the two groups only have to do a sketch twice a month. If this is something you are interested in please let me know but I will be doing a post on the blog today. Thanks for your interest.

Colouring chibi/anime eyes

I have had many enquiries on how to colour the eyes on most of our stamps at Spesch so I thought I had better do a tutorial on it. More like a show and tell as there isn't much to it really. Below are three photos showing my progress with the eyes.

Colour the whole eye with a light colour. I used B21

Grab a darker colour and put it in the middle. I used B02

Lastly I grabbed my 0.5 liner and coloured her iris.

Here is the whole image coloured.

If you want to get tricky you could go darker in the middle and blend with the lighter colour but I like the colour to be close so I don't blend (most of the time).