Practice, practice, practice

I was reminded of my youth today, as I practice to improve my colouring skills as well as creating a couple of cards to finish my afternoon of me time.

I love the In The Moment Stampset, images of women relaxing and taking it easy.  We're all guilty of not doing that enough.  Not only do I love the images and sentiments in this set, it's a great set to practice colouring with.  Lots of big white areas to colour and blend.  I've only practiced a couple of techniques this morning with this set, Stampin' Blends' alcohol markers and the Whisper White craft ink pad.  The technique of stamping onto coloured paper and highlighting areas with white to lift the image off the page is fast becoming one of my favoured technique.  

Sometimes the white craft ink really does work magic, look at the Calming Camelia image one of the free stampsets during the Sale-A-Bration in January and February.  I'm not fond of the image as it stands, however........

Look what you get when you add a bit of craft ink and them pick out the leaves with Stampin' Blends'

I finished my day with creating a couple of cards using the Hydrangea Haven, In The Moment and Waves of Inspiration stampsets.  I used the circle dies to make a stencil for the sky in my Waves of inspiration card.  Using the card with circle cut out, I was able to layer blue ink using blending brushes until I reached the level of colour I wanted.  I love the relax sentiment and added the birds and pelican to help with the calming feel of the card.  3 colours in my pallet to compliment the simplicity of the card, Blamy Blue, Soft Suede and Basic White.

I can't believe I've only now got around to using the Hydrangea Haven bundle, given I love an hydrangea.  Unfortunately I think I have managed to kill off the hydrangeas I inherited from my grandparents, so I'm safer having the ink and card version.  The versatility of the set is awesome, stamp with outline and colour, stamp the no outline using the textured stamp for a water colour feel.  I think I'm going to have this stamp set out a lot more over the coming weeks and months.