World Card Making Day .....

... so I guess there's a special day for just about everything!!  Not that I'm complaining mind - I've had a really fun crafting day. 

I finally got to attend a Promarkers Workshop held at Purple Butterfly (my local craft shop) - lead by Dawn.  We were a small group - six people in all.  Kathryn came with me and was as good as gold reading her book, as well as doing a bit of crafty shopping!!

I got my Promarkers last year as part of my 50th birthday present and I've been happily learning how to use them - just by playing.  However, I've been trying to get a place at the workshop since last year (the course has been full up to now) as I thought it would be a good idea to check out different ideas and techniques, and hopefully pick up some tips.

Dawn provided a work pack to make up two cards.  The first image we coloured was a sweet penguin using different shades of grey and I was really pleased with my test image.  Sadly, it's gone to a new home in Kathryn's craft stash, and I haven't yet used the other image to make up that card.

The second image to colour was a sweet baby fairy - can't remember the name of the company who makes this stamp - but it's really cute.  Edited:  stamp is made by hÄnglar & stÄnglar (Thanks Paula, that was the name Dawn said, but I couldn't remember it!)  Overall, I'm reasonably pleased with my colouring of the test image - except I was a bit heavy handed colouring the skin and while I've tried to lift some of the colour with the blending pen, it's not worked very well.  I'm going to try to life a bit more colour tomorrow and see if I can rescue the image.

I decided to stamp a different image and have another go at colouring - and this time I'm really pleased with the result.

I think this is the first time I've used this image of Gorjuss - I know I've seen it used on lots of other cards, and she's really lovely. I used slightly lighter shades to colour the skin on this image than I did on the baby angel - and I think I prefer the slightly softer look.  I picked green and purple as they are two of my all time favourite colours and work so well together.  I used my nestie to cut out the image, and tried out the "out-of-the -box" technique, where the image hangs over the edge of the die.  I really like this effect. 

Edited:  Thanks for all the lovely comments about my colouring - all very much appreciated.  But credit, where credit's due, I got some excellent blending tips from Dawn and the colours here were ones we used in class - so I knew they worked really well together.  I also found some super lessons on colouring at Passion for Promarkers - that's where I learnt how to do the hair!!

I made the backing papers to coordinate with the green in her tights.  Dawn showed us how to make a lovely striped and sparkly paper using easy-lift double-sided sticky tape. It's so pretty.  I used the darker shade of green to colour the stripes on this sheet and to make the backing mat I used the lighter shade of green.  I also used the Promarkers to colour the organza ribbon and flower to match.  And thanks again to Becca for sharing her tips on making bows - mine are so much better now - I even managed a double bow on this card.

Stamp:  Sugar Nellie - Gorjuss Sitting
Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black
Spellbinders:  Regular Squares Sm (S4-128) #6, Regular Squares Lg (S4-126) #6
Promarkers: Apple, Meadow Green, Lilac, Lavender, Amethyst
Accessories:  Organza ribbon and punched square mat - from Dawn; Flower from stash

Today has been amazingly hot.  Hawarden, where I was attending the workshop, recorded a temperature of 28.2°C - a new record for October in North Wales.  For those still using Fahrenheit that's 83°F!!!  And it's the first day of October.  We should have been having temperatures like this in August.  I'm going to make the most of it though - it looks like it's going to stay nice for another few days.

I hope everyone has had a super day.  I'm off to try and sleep now - it's about 16°C now - so very warm and sultry!  See you tomorrow.