Simple, Perfect Bows

It is so amazing to have you join me on each of these Artful Adventures. I really want to make sure to show you ideas you can get some use from!  That’s why today’s discovery is about learning a nifty method for a simple, perfect bows!  Some people feel like they are all thumbs when it comes to tying a bow.  I have always felt pretty adequate in this area, and loved tying those big bows on the back of my girls dresses when they were young.  However, I was never really able to show or articulate how I did it.  My dad always said I did something kind of odd in the way that I did it.  (Wouldn’t you know an old sailor would know if you were tying the perfect knot or bow!)  Anyway, watch as my friend Georgia Giguere shows you the most clever way to just about get a perfect bow EVERY time!  You will love this method for your projects!  Seriously, you are going to love this!

Watercolor Technique, Watercolor Crayons

Watercolor Crayon TechniquesToday’s Artful Adventures discover what a lovely effect you can achieve with watercolor crayons! Watercolor crayons are water soluble and versatile. They are easy to take with you, as they are pigment in a stick form, sort of like crayons you used as a child, but without the waxiness.  There are numerous ways to use this form of product and today, I’ll show you a few ways to get started!

You’ll want to be sure to use a waterproof ink to stamp any outlines that you may want to use as the basis of a project.  Stazon is one that I keep on hand for this technique, as well as the Stazon cleaner.

If you are using the technique with the water brush, be sure to use watercolor paper.  If you are going to use the blender pen technique, it will work well on your regular Whisper White card stock, as long as you do not try to work it too hard!  If you use any of these techniques, be sure and share with us over on the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!  We’d love to see what you are up to.

My favorite water soluble crayons are Caran D’Ache Neocolor II.

Watercolor Technique, Markers and Stamps

Artful Adventures Watercolor Techniques with Markers and StampsToday’s artful adventure video takes us further into the world of watercolor techniques which we are exploring this week.  We’ll use markers and stamps, and we’ll discover how to achieve effects with the assistance of tools such as water brushes, blender pens, or misting with water.

We’ll also look at a 2-step stamping process, as well.  If you aren’t familiar with 2-step stamping, it is where a completed images is stamped in two steps, using two separate stamps.  These can make amazing images.

There are no completed projects shown today, just the watercolor techniques with markers and stamps. Remember, many of these lessons are to help you use the items you have on hand, however I have included some links to basic tools beneath the video.

Watercolor Technique, Ink Pads and Re-inkers

Artful Adventures Watercolor Flower

Flower colored with watercolor technique.

As scrapbookers, stampers, carmakers and just crafters in general, we are often looking for ways to use products in our stash!  Join me on another artful adventure this week at we explore some water color techniques. Today we’ll  look at ink pads and re-inkers and using a water brush.

This is an easy way to add a little different look to some of your projects.

Artful Adventures card with watercolor technique on flower card

Stamped flower colored with watercolor technique, cut out and applied to card.

Pumpkin Patch 12 Photo Scrapbook Layout

Here is the scrapbook page I promised to show you with pictures of our outing to the pumpkin patch. I have also included a video to walk you through some of the elements of the page and give you some other information about the layout. You may watch it here, or read a brief description below the video.

I decided to make create this page digitally, because I had more pictures than time to scrap them onto several pages. So I decided to go ahead and use a lot of them on a single layout. That’s one of the benefits of using digital images, you can resize them as needed!

 

Since I was going to use several photos on the page I decided I would start with a layered template that used a lot of pictures. I wasn’t sure how many I would end up with but I figured it would quite a few, so I found a layout I liked that already included 9 pictures. I have a set of layered templates from DigitalScrapper.com that are great! In fact there are 12×12 pages as well as 8 1/2 x 11 layered templates! They are called Scrap It Now, so you may want to check them out. They are grouped into sets depending on how many photos you want to use, so it makes it easy to find one to use.  (I receive no compensation for mentioning this product!)

Okay, I’ll stop here and admit I should have decided on how many pictures I was going to use before I selected the template, but I didn’t! I had to add 2 more frames, plus you’ll see I actually used one my photos as the top of the background! It seemed perfect for the overall theme of the page, and really was going to be too small if I used it in one of the frames.

There are so many pictures on the page that I didn’t want to use too many other embellishments on the page because I felt it would become too busy. After the page is printed, I’ll hand write names near the pictures or add any other small journaling very close to the edges of the photos.

If you have any questions be sure to let me know! Come back tomorrow to see a great way to get a double page layout (paper) ready for Halloween and get your pictures on it right away!