All I do is craft, craft, craft...

Not really, but I wish that were true! I have been trying to up my crafting game and it's resulted in some purchases of supplies and then actively using them.  I try to make sure that I use my supplies regularly and I haven't bought new supplies (besides adhesive) in a few weeks. That might not sound spectacular, but for me that's a long time.  The truth is I realized I have enough supplies right now to go "shopping" in my craft studio; that realization forces me to use/rediscover what I already own.  Doing this has yielded some "Responsible Crafting".  I'm using that to refer to things like making swatches:

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens

Practicing my handlettering: 

Done with Tombow Dual Brushpens

And even working on my digital art: 

Wacom Pad using Sketchbook

I've been working to really get the most out of my supplies and I have to say I'm pretty happy.  I feel like I have fallen in love with some of my supplies all over again, which I like because I think it's easy to fall into the trap of "hoarding" supplies and being afraid to use your "good" supplies. To be honest, the whole reason you buy things should be so you can use them. I'm trying to take my own advice there, happy crafting! 

The Daily Marker 30 Day - All of the Brush Pens

I have been coloring quite a bit and working on my hand lettering. This week I crammed in several projects for the challenge, so I am listing them at once, rather than posting daily. 

Tombow ink blending on Bristol paper with white gel pen accents, and gold metallic marker accents. 

More Tombow on Bristol and some more ink blending. 

This was done with Zig Clean Color Brush Pens on Drawing Paper

Also Zig Clean Color on card stock. Background is Distress Ink. 

Zig Clean Color on shimmer card stock. 

I did several pieces this week, and tried a few different tools. I have to say I loved the Kuretake brush pens right out of the box, fro drawing, coloring, and handlettering.  They proved to be extremely versatile and easy to use, I wish I'd ordered them sooner! Next week I will have a post with a tutorial video showcasing some of the 2016 QuickQuotes PowderPuff Chalking Inks, until then, happy crafting!

The Daily Marker 30 Day - Day 4

Cutting it close! I used my new Zig Clean Color Markers for this, they make brush lettering so much easier! 

One of my favorite Jason Mraz songs. 

I'll be doing more with these soon and I'll post a video of some techniques for using them! Happy crafting! 

Watercolor, hand lettering, and masking.

I wanted to try doing some hand lettering and water coloring and I thought the easiest way to do it would be to use my Molotow masking pen.  

I started by finding a quote I really liked from Aesop, and hand lettered it in pencil on a piece of Bristol paper. 

Beginning and some guide lines. 

Completed quote

Then I covered all of the lettering with the Molotow masking pen. 

All masked and ready to go. 

What I should have done here is erased my guidelines, but I didn't so they're slightly visible in the finished work, but if you are making this, now is a good time to erase them being careful not to disturb the masking fluid. 

Then I added my watercolor background and dried it with my heat tool.

Before the reveal... 

Finally I removed the mask with an adhesive eraser (they're very handy and won't cause your paper to pill). 

Finished product! 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results! The next time I do this though, I will erase my guidelines earlier and I will use a lighter sketch pencil when I do my hand lettering. Hope you enjoyed this, Happy Crafting! 

New cards with new stuff

Last time I talked about my amazing watercolors and yesterday I finally put them to work on a card. I cut out the hearts on my Cricut Explore and used a piece of Tim Holtz Ranger Watercolor paper for the background. I chose 3 colors I really liked and put them down first as a wash and then flicked some dark purple and dark blue on top. I dried it all with my heat gun and then adhered the hearts using some Sticky Dots. Then I finished it by adding some Doodlebugs sequins using Glossy Accents and my Pick Up stick. Finally I stamped the sentiment with an Avery Elle stamp and a Versacolor ink pad.

I hope you enjoy the video and Happy Crafting.