Kathy's 30 Day Coloring Challenge

Welcome to The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge Blog Hop. Kathy Racoosin from The Daily Marker loves to colour and she is hosting her fifth 30 DAY COLORING CHALLENGE. The premise of the challenge is to colour something everyday even if it’s for just five minutes. It doesn’t matter what you colour or what medium you use. It's such a fun challenge and a brilliant way to make sure that you take a relaxing break for yourself during the day.

Even if you can't get to colour every day you can join in at any time while the challenge is on. You will find that Kathy encourages you along the way to stretch your creativity a little bit more and to feel successful with your colouring. You will learn so much from Kathy and pick up lots of tips and techniques. More details on the challenge can be found in Kathy's blog post here and in Kathy's video here.

I first got to know Kathy through the Hero Arts group on Flickr and from the start she has amazed me with her sheer creativity and fabulous colouring skills. Today Kathy has assembled a blog hop to give your creativity a jump start. Along the hop you'll meet Hero Arts artists, friends and Hostesses.

You should have arrived here from the blog of my very talented friend Linda - can't wait to see what she has coloured and created! A full list of all the blogs on the hop can be found here on Kathy's blog. At the end of the hop you will find a fantastic GIVEAWAY from my favourite company Hero Arts - two shopping sprees of $25.00 each! Winners will be randomly picked from the blog comments of the blog hop - good luck! I have comment moderator switched on so please don't worry if your comment doesn't appear immediately.

Often when I stamp an image for a card I stamp off a few extras for the future in case I need to make a card in a hurry. I have a drawer full of these stamped images ready to go. For when I'm out and about I also keep some stamped images in one container and in another container I have images that I've fully cut out and are ready to colour along with others that have just been coloured. It makes it easy to grab some things when I have the opportunity to cut out or colour. Often when I'm sitting in my car waiting for my kids to come out of school I'll be cutting out and/or colouring. It's amazing how much you can get done when you're just waiting around!

From the time I got Hero Arts Spice Market Large Petal Background I've had great fun colouring it and have used it again and again on cards. Below is a card I posted a while ago which shows what the full image looks like on a kraft base and coloured with pencils.

Stamps - Spice Market Large Petal Background & Type (Hero Arts)

This time I wanted a brighter look so stamped part of the image on a scrap of white card and coloured with Promarkers. After cutting out the piece I adhered it to the top of the card. The sentiment was die cut three times and layered.

Stamp - Spice Market Large Petal Background (Hero Arts)
Dies - Thanks Stamp & Cut (Hero Arts)

Well after making that card it seems like I was bitten by the colouring bug and went on to stamp the image again using up more card scraps.

I went with cool blues and greens for the first card

Stamps - Spice Market Large Petal Background & It's Your Day (Hero Arts)
Die - Pierced Rectange Frames (My Favorite Things)

and then used a mix of warm colours for the second.

Stamps - Spice Market Large Petal Background & It's Your Day (Hero Arts)
Die - Pierced Rectange Frames (My Favorite Things)

I have to say I really enjoyed taking some time to lose myself completely in colouring and would encourage you to do the same and join in on Kathy's The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge if you haven't already done so.

Now it's time to pop over to the next stop on the hop where you'll be visiting the very creative Cheiron. Enjoy the rest of the hop and I'm looking forward to going hopping too!

One Layer Thank You

This card started out as a way of trying out some gorgeous green and blue Faber-Castell pencils that my friend Trinh had sent me - thanks again Trinh:)

I had never used Faber-Castell pencils before and I have to say I love them. They blend so well and I love the triangular shape and grip dots which make for a very comfortable and firm hold. Lol even thought I'm not, I'm beginning to sound like an ad for Faber-Castell - I just like to say when I find a product that works really well.

Stamps (Hero Arts) - Large Petal Background & Type

To start with I stamped the Large Petal Background on kraft card, drew a frame around it with a fine tipped felt pen and then stamped the sentiments around the image as another frame. Then the colouring fun began. As with this card, I did all my colouring while watching World Cup matches the other evening. I didn't set out with any particular colour scheme in mind so just added in colours I already had to the greens and blue that Trinh had sent me. Then I added white gel pen to parts of the image. The black ink seemed to fade a little into the kraft card so I again used my fine tipped felt pen to go over most of the outlines and also the sentiment.

I'm submitting this card into Hero Arts One Layer Challenge and A Blog Named Hero Color It In Challenge.

Congrats on Passing Driving Test

This is a card to congratulate someone on passing their driving test. Here in Ireland learner drivers must have L plates (a red “L” on a square white background) on their cars until they pass their driving test. I’ll never forget how delighted I was years ago when I passed my test and could tear up my L plates! So I wanted to incorporate something about getting rid of L plates on the sentiment.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Going, Clouds, Flourish Background, Type and Small Variety Alphabet.

Using VersaMark, I stamped the Background Flourish on the brown card base. I wanted a bit of texture behind the car so stamped the Clouds Background on a scrap of felt using faded jeans distress ink. A scrap of frayed upholstery fabric was used for the ground.


The car was stamped twice on paper from the Hello Luscious Paper Pad (thanks again, Sharon). The body of the car is layered and covered with a layer of glossy accents.

ATC swap with Marijke

When I was making ATCs for the current Hero Arts challenge, I thought it would be fun if a group of us got together to do an ATC swap. So that’s exactly what a bunch of us did in the Hero Arts Flickr Group. With the random draw it turned out that my ATC swap buddy was Marijke in the Netherlands.

It’s been great getting to know Marijke a bit better through the swap and I was delighted that she was as keen as me to swap quite a few ATCs! We decided to swap six and wanted to surprise each other with our ATCs so didn’t mention a particular theme or stamps. I sent two ATCs I had already made this month – the owls from here and the bees from here.

For the other four I tried to incorporate a bit of both of us and what we like into them. Marijke loves flowers and nature and with her being from the Netherlands I had to include some orange (reminds me of when I see the Dutch football team on tv!). For me I included some of my favourite things – fabric, vellum and patchwork. The typewriter with the Friend Definition background represents all the emails we've sent each other for the swap. Marijke has received her ATCs so here they are:


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Clouds & Big And Small Flowers
The clouds are stamped with tumbled glass distress ink. I paper pieced the leaves\stem and made the fabric flower. Sally kindly sent me the baker's twine I used on the button - thanks again Sally!


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Sew Artsy
Using patterned paper I made a little strip quilt pattern for the background. I coloured the sewing machine with watercolour pencils and covered with a layer of Glossy Accents.



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Happy Wishes & Old Letter Writing
I applied broken china, faded jeans and shabby shutters distress inks to white card and spritzed lightly with water. Then I white embossed the Happy Wishes image and added touches of diamond stickles here and there. The butterfly was punched from a piece of vellum which had been white embossed with the Old Letter Writing.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Type, Friend Definition & Small Variety Alphabet.
The typewriter was embossed using red embossing powder and the background was clear embossed. I used some letters from the alphabet set to create the message and just added a pearl heart to finish.

If you are still awake after this loooong post, well done!! Hope you all are having a fab weekend!

Love You in Triplicate

I made this card for the Tissue Paper Magic Challenge in the Moxie Fab World, the current Hero Arts challenge and the Simon Says Emboss It Challenge. As I tried to make a masculine card I wanted to keep it fairly plain and simple. It only took about 10 minutes to make, which is definitely a record for me, lol!


Stamps (Hero Arts) – Type and Small Variety Alphabet

On this card I used the tissue paper as sheets of carbon paper in the typewriter and also as a background (adhered to a piece of black card to give strength). I learned to type on a manual typewriter and now think it’s funny how we used to correct our mistakes and make duplicate documents. I had to explain to my son this morning what carbon paper was and why we used it in typewriters – I felt really ancient, lol! The typewriter is embossed in red and I just added a couple of beads to it and my favourite embellies – Hero Arts heart pearls. The baker’s twine, which unfortunately I can’t get here, was part of a lovely package of goodies that my friend Trinh sent me – thanks again Trinh:)

We’ve been spoiled rotten here with a glorious week of sunshine and temperatures around 21C\70F. Hope it’s sunny wherever you are and that you all have a wonderful weekend:)