Prismacolors and Gamsol featuring Playful Kittens

Happy happy Friday, friends!  We made it!  It's Tara and to celebrate the arrival of the weekend I want to share an adorable friendship card that I created using the Prismacolors and Gamsol coloring technique on the super sweet Playful Kittens stamp set from Gerda Steiner Designs.

I started with a sentiment that stretched all the way across my card so that I could use the line as the "ground" for my cute little kitties.  Be sure to use a waterproof ink when doing this technique since the Gamsol will smudge it otherwise.  I chose Ranger Archival Jet Black ink.
  

This coloring technique is super easy and always produces really great results!  By putting your color down around the outside of your image and using your blending stumps and Gamsol to blend in to a lighter center you create a really soft, dimensional look.  Tip: To get the old color off of your blending stumps and to sharpen them keep a piece of fine grit sandpaper handy!

To compliment the sweet kittens I chose a feminine patterned paper from Simple Stories and used both sides of the double sided pattern.  I just love the floral on the inside of the card!

Check out the video tutorial for a comprehensive look at how this card came together!  As always, thank you so very much for joining me and I hope you have a fabulous weekend!  See you again soon!  Bye!

VIDEO Glittery Snow Angels

Hello everyone!  It's Tara and I hope you are all having an amazing Friday!  I am enjoying a weekend hanging out with my sister so I am all smiles!  The weather here is atrocious!  Lots of storms expected but I love it because it's the perfect excuse to hunker down with a cup of hot tea, my favorite blanket and binge watch Netflix with my sis!  

Today I am sharing a super fun winter card featuring the brand new stamp set Snow Angels!  I just love how incredibly clever and unique this set it!  Santa and all his pals just letting loose and playing in the snow.  I love it!

I used a technique that is going to become one of my faves - glitter with a stencil - and put some super sparkly Nuvo Diamond Sheen glitter on top of my snowfall background.  Santa and his friends are colored with Copics and then die cut out using some stitched circle dies.

The pops of red that tie in with the background provide just enough color in this white winter wonderland scene!  These images were so much fun to color and I can't wait to use them on more holiday cards in the future! 

Thank you so much for joining me today!  I will see you again soon! Bye!

VIDEO Shaker Spider featuring Bats Halloween

Hi guys!  It's Tara and I am so incredibly excited to be sharing the first installment of my Handmade Halloween 2016 video series with you today!  And it's featuring the amazing Bats Halloween stamp set from Gerda Steiner Designs!  I have been looking forward to doing this series again since it ended last year so I really hope you enjoy it!

For this card I wanted to create a fun shaker card using the super spooky sweet spider from the stamp set.  I have a fabulous spider web stencil that I just knew would go great with him!  I also just picked up the new Doodlebug release and was itching to use the uber cool enamel dot eyeballs that matched the Boos and Brews paper pad! And as luck would have it, the eyeballs fit perfectly on this little spider guy!
 

 

I had such a blast combining lots of spooky Halloween themed elements to complete this project!  I'll be honest, this is a little busier than I usually like my cards but man did it turn out fun!  And all of the iridescent sequiny goodness filling the shaker window  just completed the whole design!

Thanks so much for stopping by! See you all next time!  Bye!

VIDEO No-Line Watercoloring featuring Cheerful Hedgehogs

Hi, friends!  It's Tara and I am so excited to share this project with you today! I promised in my last Curl E. Q&A video that I would be "falling" all over September since this is my absolute favorite season and this card just makes me all kinds of autumn happy!

I am using the Cheerful Hedgehogs and Happy Fall stamp sets from Gerda Steiner Designs and doing some no-line watercoloring for the sweet little hedgehog.  I always start by stamping my image in Antique Linen Distress Ink because it is light enough that it fades as you watercolor but dark enough to allow me to see where I need to color.  

Once my little cutie was colored I created an ink smoothed background to simulate a giant pile of fall leaves flying everywhere while this hedgie plays in the big leaf pile.  I found the perfect fall Distress Inks with Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge and Fossilized Amber.  So pretty!

Finally, I broke out the Copper Perfect Pearls to add some shimmer and shine.  I had so much fun creating this card!  Thank you so much for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!  Bye!

VIDEO Prismacolors on Kraft featuring Fall Mice

Hi all!  Happy Friday!  It's Tara and today I am sharing another fabulous fall card with you all! The Fall Mice stamp set is perfection if you're a love of fall like I am!  I wanted the adorable images to shine so I used one of my favorite coloring methods - Prismacolor pencils on kraft card stock!

Using some simple masking I created a cute little scene using this sweet little mouse and a few of the many, many fall images in this set.  I then used my Prismacolor pencils to color everything in.  The trick to creating depth with colored pencils is lots and lots of light layers!  

 

 

I love how this sweet and simple one-layer card turned out!  It got me more excited than ever for pumpkin everything!!  Thank you so much for joining me today!  Have a fabulous weekend and I'll see you again soon!  Bye!

VIDEO: Creating a Moonscape featuring Bats Halloween

Hi there, all!  It's Tara and today I am so excited to be sharing a project using the brand new Gerda Steiner Designs Bats Halloween stamp set!  I am super stoked for fall and Halloween - it is my absolute favorite time of year and the best time to make cards!!  When I saw this new set I did a happy dance!  These bats are so adorable and I love that there are sentiments for occasions other than Halloween! 

For this project I wanted to try my hand at a nighttime moonscape.  I have never attempted to create the light glow around the moon and though it looked like fun!  Turns out, it wasn't as tricky as I anticipated!  I like when that happens!

Once my night scene was created a I used Distress Inks to watercolor the moon to add some texture.  Using the same technique I colored in the adorable little bat!  I added a sentiment with some Liquid Platinum embossing powder (this color is divine!) and this card was done!!

Thank you all so much for stopping by! I'll see you again soon!  Bye!

Video: Playing with Patterned Paper featuring Playful Kittens

Happy happy Friday, all!  It's Tara from Curl E. Cue's and I, for one, am pretty stoked about the weekend happening tomorrow!  So to kick things off right, I am sharing this adorable card featuring the sweetest little kitty from the Playful Kittens stamp set!!  I just adore his little face and had to color him like my Egon (yes, he is named after Dr. Egon Spengler from the original Ghostbusters - we are just that cool).

I colored Egon in using Copic markers and then cut him out with a stitched rectangle die.  The bulk of this card is about using some really fun patterned papers in new ways.  Using a scalloped border die I created the vertical strip behind the focal piece and then muted the pattern with a velum overlay.  I used a bit of leftover paper of that same patter and cut out some of the hearts to add as accents on top of the velum.  For the sentiment on this card I used some of the little strips that come in the paper pad.  I am really bad about always ignoring the pages that have sentiments or little design squares that are meant to be cut out and used so I thought I'd give that a try.  It was just lucky that there was the perfect sentiment for my kitty!

I finished up the card with some sequins and added Glossy Accents to all of the cut out hearts to make them seem like enamel embellishments!  That way everything coordinates perfectly since it is all from the same paper pad!  The subtle gray paw prints in the background really tie everything in together!

Thank so much for joining me today!  I hope you enjoyed today's project and I'll see you again soon!  Bye!

VIDEO: Watercoloring a Galaxy Background

Happy Friday, friends!  It's Tara from Curl E. Cue's and today's set of cards is full of all kinds of watercolor, galactic fun!  I just keep coming back to these super cute space themed stamp sets from Gerda Steiner Designs!  When you have both Blast Off and Alien Invasion the possibilities are just endless!

Today I tried my hand at creating a galaxy background using watercolors.  My inspiration for these cards came from Heather over at Houses Built of Cards.  She does these amazing ink blended backgrounds behind black and white stamped images and I really wanted to try it!  So I went with galaxies behind fun aliens and rockets and stuff!

The trick to these backgrounds is truly just practice!  I think that my third card turned out way better than my first one as I figured out how much of the colors I like showing through and how the paint layered on top of itself.  Check out the video to see how I created each one!  I do love that I used the same technique and each card looks really different!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!  See you next time!  Bye!

VIDEO: Blending a Copic Rainbow featuring Unicorns

Happy Friday!  It's finally here!  I don't know about you guys but I am so relieved.  I had moments this week where I was worried my friend Friday would never get here!  I'm Tara from Curl E. Cue's and I am so super excited about today's project! This new Unicorns stamp set is just dreamy!  And as soon as I saw it I just knew that my glitter paste was coming out to play.  Because nothing screams UNICORN like some sparkle, right?!

I started by mixing some Sugar Glitter Paste with different colors of Distress Inks and applying it over a stencil directly onto my card bases.  I love that you can get any color you can imagine by using this technique!  

Then I colored in the super stinking cute waving unicorn from the stamp set.  The really fun part was using a rainbow of markers to blend his mane!  This was the first time I had tried blending Copics that were not in the same color family and I had so much fun!  Check out the video below to catch all the tips I picked up while I colored.

Some fun and bright frames, a little glossy accents and three rounded corners (my kiddo's idea - she claims it is the next big trend in card making) and these puppies are done!  I had so much fun with this adorable Unicorns stamp set!  Thank you all so much for stopping by and I'll catch you next time!  Have a great weekend!  Bye!