Colouring Flowers

Hi I'm Angela, I hope you are all having fun this week. One thing I love about my Letraset Tria Markers is that I can colour more than just stamped images and artwork, I can also colour white embellishments (e.g. ribbons, plastic gems and flowers) to go with my cards. No more hunting in draws and boxes to find I've only got one of that colour left when I need 3. And I can also be more adventurous and make something completely different to what's in the craft shop.

I coloured some white paper flowers today to add to a card. I went for a bright retro look, but you could just as easily use 2 colours that are similar to each other for a more subtle delicate flower. In this example card I used the new Cherry Picking Silhouette and Cherry Season Papers by Toucan Scraps.

TIP: Make sure you are working on top of scrap paper so you don't stain your work surface with the ink.

First I used the broad tip of a pale blue (C119) to coat the paper flower (remember it will dry a paler colour than seen, in this photo it's still fresh and wet).

Whist still wet I added my second colour along the centre of each petal starting at the flower centre with the brush tip of the marker. For these retro flowers I chose a bright red (R465), a darker blue or a pale purple would produce a more delicate flower.

I finished the flowers off with gem brad centres.

Have fun and I'd love to see any flowers you colour.

What is the +1 Button?

There is a new button on the bottom of my blog posts, the +1. Today I decided to do a search and find out what it's for. Basically it helps with search engines. It's a way of telling the world that something is great, pretty, fantastic, cool, inspiring, helpful etc.

Apparently it's a bit like clicking the like button on Facebook, but you need a Google account to use it.

So if you goggle and really like a tutorial or tip you read on this blog please click +1 and tell the world to check it out. Alternatively you could just use the share on Facebook and Twitter buttons to quickly share the tip/tutorial with your friends and networks.

Thank You

Stay Put Bow Tutorial

Please help me welcome Marsha Fisher as my guest today. She's going to show us how to do this fabulous bow.

She used the Mailbox Silhouette by Toucan Scraps for the focal image of her gorgeous card. Thank you Marsha, I'm looking forward to trying out this technique soon.

The first step is to decide where you want the bow to be on your finished card and punch a hole there.

Start from the back side of the panel and feed the ribbon through…

Once the ribbon has a “tail” through the front of the card, you then want to wrap the rest of the ribbon over the entire piece….

Feed the other tail through from back to front, making sure you have one tail on either side of the ribbon and pull until all of the excess is evenly distributed between the two tails.

Finish tying the bow….for this card I kept it to a simple square knot, but a more elaborate bow could easily be accomplished here too.

Want to Share a Tip or Tutorial?

I love having guests at this Tutorials Blog, and am looking forward to introducing you to Kary and Marsha this month. Do you have a special hint, tip or technique to show us? Even if it's your first time writing a tutorial, I'd love to hear about the tip or technique you would like to share.

Also there are currently vacancies for regular contributors to this tutorials blog, if you can commit to one tutorial or tip a month I'd love to receive an application from you. Please include a link to a tutorial you have already written, or write an example tutorial to include with you application. Regular tutorial writers can request free Toucan Scraps products to use.

Colouring a Digital Stamped Flower

Hello, I'm Angela and I have some step by step photos to share with you from colouring a flower digital stamp using alcohol based markers.

The Tulip is a digital stamp by Toucan Scraps. I used Letraset Tria markers for this example, numbers R766, R765, O567, G339 and G457.

First I coloured the base and centres of each petal with Orange (O567)

Whist it was still wet, I coloured over the edges of the orange and the rest of the petals in a medium red (R766).

Again, whist still wet, I added dark red (R765) to the shaded areas, e.g. back petals, underneath the flower and the edges just behind a petal.

Then I went over the top of all the red with the main red (R766) to blend it together.

Left to dry for at least 10 mins.

Next I coloured the stem in light green (G339)

And then whist still wet I added darker green (G457) to the top of the stem and sides to give depth and shading.

I went over the top with the lighter green to blend it together.