Beach Vacation Bookmarks at Rogue

Hello - long, long, looooong time not blogging for me!  Life has been extremely busy - ALL GOOD - and blogging has taken a back seat to lots of other activities.  A wonderful beach vacation at the North Carolina shore, lots of sporting activities with the kids, and the design of our new house!  We had been in contract negotiations for several weeks, then in the design phase for a few months, and now things are finally starting to happen, so it's very exciting.  The only downside was that I poured all of my design mojo into the house plans, and not much at all into crafting!  But now hopefully.... it won't be soooo long before my next post, LOL!

I've got a little set of bookmarks featuring Rogue Redhead Designs' Beach Babes set and some of my vacation photos (from this year and last).  A little combo of my fave hobbies, you might say.  You can check out the Rogue Redhead Design blog HERE.

And, I'm thrilled to say, that the recent issue of Stampington's Catch-Up Issue featured a little piece I did with another Rogue Redhead set, Relish Reading....  that's my balloon piece on the right:

I hope you're all having a wonderful summer!  My kids are back in school - both in middle school now - so we are back to our regular routine.  Vacation is so sweet, and always so short.  But perhaps now more time for getting inky. ;)

Blue Moon Challenge at Gingersnap Creations

It's that rare time.... a Once in a Blue Moon Challenge for a fifth Wednesday of the month at Gingersnap Creations!  This time we challenge you to create something based on a prior Gingersnap Creations Art Exchange theme.  You can see all of the Gingersnap Creations Art Exchange posts by following *THIS LINK*.  For my piece, I chose the Party Time Postcard exchange.... which was to make a party-themed creation using a 4 x 6 inch format.  I decided to keep with this month's theme (but you don't have to!) of Babes and Tots, and created a little beach party scene using the adorable kids from Rogue Redhead Designs Beach Babes plate.  I colored them with Copics and altered them a bit to fit the party theme.... the little girl in orange now carries a gift bag with tissue peeking out of the top, and the little boy now sports a patterned paper party hat (as does the cutie in pink), and the little gal in the pink dress now carries party balloons instead of a handkerchief.  They are on a sandy beach (leftover background that I made with distress inks), with a patterned paper banner in the background (I believe the paper is from Glitz).  I added the beach party letters along one of the banners, and also added some postcard-type stamps, too (from Stampin' Up and Artistic Outpost).  Isn't it cool... the postmark says Ocean Grove, and I was sooooo close on the date, LOL! 

I hope you'll have the chance to play along!  And ... you've got one more day to sign up for the current Art Exchange, which is Encouraging Words magnets.  Head on over to Gingersnap Creations for the details. :)

Rogue Redhead Beach Babes

A quick little post today of a card I made with the new Beach Babes set from Rogue Redhead Designs - you can see the details on the Rogue Redhead blog *here*.

Did you know that Rogue Redhead Designs ships to the UK and Canada now??? (as well as in the US, of course).  And there is a special discount on the Beach Babes set going on right now..... you can get the details on the blog or in the shop.  Just a little enabling for a fabulous Friday. :)

Sail Away

Edited to add: I had a question about what kind of watercolor crayons I used.  Funny thing, that.  I am a total newbie at this, but I'll tell you what I've experienced so far.  Just a few weeks ago I purchased a small, cheap Staedtler set to see whether I liked them and if I would use them.  12 colors, mostly primary.  They are fun, and I figured I could get by for the near future with that.  When I went to Donna Downey's, however, she had Caran d'Ache Neocolor IIs in her shop, by the set, and *individually*!  I couldn't resist buying a few luscious shades individually (rust, coral, turquoise, olive... stuff like that).  So... the comparison:  both have beautiful, vivid colors.  Both are easy for me to work with.  However.... the Neocolors are definitely creamier, and blend more readily than the Staedtlers (that is, it doesn't take much "scrubbing" to have them blend beautifully).  If you have access to individual Neocolors, I'd say buy a couple.  (Although this is not "cost efficient" compared to the sets, it makes sense if you are unsure about what you want or how much you'll use them.  This way you've only invested a few bucks.  Try getting a few colors that are not in the smaller sets, that way you won't have overlap if you decide to invest in a set.)  But if you don't have Neocolors nearby and you want to try out watercolor crayons for the first time, the less expensive versions are still very nice, too.  So that's the long answer, LOL! Hope that helps.

Happy Friday. :)  Today I have a little clean and simple card featuring images from a brand new plate from Rogue Redhead Designs called "Beach Babes."  I decided that this little boat image, border design, and sentiment would go along perfectly over at the Less Is More Challenge, which this week is to use the colors of your nation's flag.  A little send-off to summer with the Red White and Blue.  I wanted to play with some new watercolor crayons I purchased, so I stamped the boat a bit off-center and filled in the sea and sky with crayons.  The boat is paper pieced, with a little crayon color added.  I scratched out some splashing waves with an Xacto knife.  The greek key border is embossed in dark blue, the sentiment stamped in a deep red.  The hardest part about this card was photographing it!  You can click for a larger view.... something went wonky in my photo processing efforts and I think I've ended up with a bit of a blurry image in the regular sized version.  I've also been having trouble uploading images to blogger again..... anyone?

I've got a few more pics of projects from my classes with Donna Downey.  Here are a few album pages from the Heart and Soul class......

Masking, glimmer misting, inking..... fun stuff.  Here's to a happy weekend for all! :)