After last Saturday’s snowfall (Oct 10th), although it mostly melted away by late evening, it’s somewhat difficult to think of doing Fall projects! Because I was thrusted into a wintery-frame-of-mind I decide to begin coloring the SNOWMAN TRIO from Saturday’s New Release Images.

I chose Prismacolor pencil colors to coordinate with my paper collection which makes coloring each images details much easier. Beginning with the body I used color numbers: PC1068-French Grey 10% in combination with numbers: PC1015-Bleu Deco, PC904-Light Cerulean Bleu, and *PC902-Bleu Marine (*use sparingly) in that order and a touch of PC928-Blush Pink for the cheeks.

Their accessories were done in a variety of other Prismacolors, working from light to dark - numbers: PC1014-Deco Pink, PC993-Hot Pink, PC994-Process Red, & PC923-Scarlet Lake, PC934-Lavender, PC1008-Parma Violet, PC1004-Yellow Chartreuse, PC913-Spring Green, PC912-Apple Green, PC909-Grass Green, PC1011-Deco Yellow, PC918-Orange, and PC946-Dark Brown (don’t forget Colorless Blender PC 1077!). I hope by giving you the Prismacolor numbers, it helps anyone wanting to create the same effects. Also, if you are just getting into using Prismacolor pencils these numbers are a good beginning to purchase.

I also added some flocking to one of the caps and ear muffs using a Quickie Glue Pen by Sakura and a plastic rhinestone for the center of the star. The top hat was done in Prismacolor numbers: PC1060-Cool Grey 20%, PC1063-Cool Grey 50%, and PC935-Black.

I laid out a variety if image sizes before printing and glad that I did, because it was hard to choose which size I liked best and which size I wanted to use on cards … I even did 1-1/2″ x 1-1/2″ and they still turned out darling – hmmmm, think I’ll make some gift tags up too!

Hope you’re inspired … Toodles from Doodles! 

This time of year you can’t help but love making cards. It’s a time when you can use up paper scraps, try new techniques and products to brighten family and friends holiday card projects! The Design Team came up with some pretty clever cards using a variety of last Saturday’s All New Release images and hope they’ve inspired you! They did me, and one of my favorite images to work with are the Santa’s. Click on the images to view the details.  

Using Prismacolor pencils, some Stampendous Fun Flock, and adding bits of imagination to the letter under his stool and to Santa’s Good List that he’s holding you can really have fun with this image. I’ve even dimensionally applied Santa’s List and hands which added even more flare to this character and of course the sentiment inside reads: “Well … hopefully Santa will find it before Christmas Eve!” Have a Merry Christmas.

This card is made using a 4-3/4″ x 7-1/4″ side-fold card from white card stock and your image size can be anywhere from 4-1/2″ to 5″ for this card size. The square inset panel for the Santa image, beginning with the peachy color, starts with card stock size 3-3/4″ x 5″ adding smaller card stock and paper layers onto it. Santa is applied with punched-dots from cardboard to give a slightly raised effect. The outside sentiment was computer generated using a font from my collection.  The streamer measures 1″ x 4-1/4″ with the wording inset size of 3/4″ x 2-3/4″.

In this month’s new release you’ll find images that include rainy day people, Cardinals and Sparrows, snowmen and frogs, kitchen utensils for recipe cards or to make up as tags for containers of gift-giving homemade goodies, and a few fun fall images! And there’s more to come mid-month!

Toodles from Doodles, Diane

Are you wanting to use your Prismacolor pencils? Of course you do! And bet you want to learn all sorts of fabulous techniques using these pencils that I use to color most of my DZ Doodles images, huh?

Prismacolor Pencils

Prismacolor pencils are artist quality wax-based pencils. Wax-based pencils are perfect for smoothly blending colors while still applying to paper with consistent, even, vivid or pastel tones. These pencils are easily found at just about every scrapbooking and art store – DickBlick.com carries all the colors!

Prismacolor also makes a blending pencil and soft erasers that are a necessity to blending colors. The Colorless Blending Pencil is optional, but for me, a must-have blending tool and all that I use on my projects! You’ll also need a quality hand held pencil sharpener to keep pencils with a point … best to invest in an electric sharpener which makes sharpening quick & easy and not as messy!

Good Idea

It’s always a good idea to practice working with your pencils before applying colors to the actual artwork. Laying in even areas of color takes practice, but because of their soft pigment, Prismacolor pencils makes it easy to do. Practice varying pressure with which you apply the strokes and notice how this creates a gradation. Practice mixing strokes of different widths and lengths. Render curved lines to show roundness. Crosshatch the color by overlapping vertical strokes with horizontal strokes. Move about your image so that all areas are being developed simultaneously. Try scribbling the pencil to see the textured pattern that results. Stipple the color onto paper to produce a mottled effect.

Scribbling and stippling the colors to produce a mottled effect!

Color pencil renderings require you to work “light colors to dark colors”. This means that richer colors are built gradually from a combination of colors. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you must render light areas first and shadow areas last; some like to define the dark shadow areas first. This technique helps make the lighter areas “pop” and helps you see and preserve the light in a colored pencil rendering.

How To Scribble and Stipple Color Pencils

To do the Scribbling and Stippling colors to produce a mottled effect in Madge’s apron first outline the apron area with a light color and softly fill-in the apron area to lay down a base color – a light color such as Cream or French Grey, or white. These have a higher content of a wax-base to them. In doing this you will have a layer of color to eventually help spread your other colors around when using the Colorless Blender pencil. FYI: It takes less time to fill in if your pencil base color has a slight dull tip that makes broader srokes. Choose 3 or 4 crazy pencil colors and begin applying dots all over her apron - the more pressure you apply to each color the more defined the dot will appear in the final blending process.

Click on image: Defined Dots

The softer the dots are applied, the softer they will appear after using the blending pencil.

Click on image: Soft dotting

When you’ve completed your dotting’s you can either softly color in the area again with your base color to begin the blending or just begin the process of blending by using a circular motion with your blending pencil. You needn’t apply extreme pressure, just scribble the colors together every which way!

World Card Making Day was celebrate far and wide last Saturday, Oct. 3rd … we’ve uploaded our fans best cards onto our site Gallery, and hope you’ll have a blast scrolling through them!

This Saturday, Oct 1oth around 8:00am CST we’ll be listing our NEW RELEASE IMAGES along with our Design Team Dozen projects! They are just so cute, you’ll want to make them all! From Santa and gingerbreads, to snowman and frog’s, you won’t be able to choose. It’s a fun collection that will warm your heart this holiday season – and thought I’d give you a few ”sneak peek” previews!

Toodles from Doodles!

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy was he?! That is until I got in the bear mood and applied flocking to some of our bear images. These two little bears from our digi stamp Bear Collection are adorable “flocked” and would be fun to use on “Thinking of You” , “Get Well” or “I Love You” cards (to name a few).

Fun Flock  by Stampendous is simple to use and will adhere to any sticky surface. It can be used with glue pads, heat and sticky products, even mixed with embossing powders! The very fine soft fiber powder is easy to use and comes as single colors or in sets. I love cards that make you want to touch & feel it or have dimensionally applied images. They seem to just pop-out at you!

Process in creating with flock.

The way I like to do my flocked images, after the printed image has dried thoroughly, color in the area that you are going to flock. Use a pencil color that is similar to your flock color or one that is a bit darker to deepen the color of the flock. If you just apply the flock to a white cardstock image, the white tends to show through. Your glue will only absorb so much of the flock material!  Also color in any decorative areas of the image. Should you accidentally get glue in those areas the glue prevents you from coloring them later on. It’s also important, if you intend to cut-out your image, to do so before applying the flock otherwise it tends to wear down with a lot of handling.

The flocking can be applied to any glue, but, my favorite glue thing, which can sometimes be tedious to use because of its fine tip, is the Quickie Glue pen by Sakura which gives great flocking results. I work small areas at a time and the “blue” let’s me know where it’s applied heavily enough before dumping a dab of flock onto it. Also, you can get into those hard to reach areas with this pen. Just dot around the area until you have a build up of glue, swirl it around and apply a dab of flock. Then do another section until the entire area is flocked!

I start out with no more than a tablespoon of flock and you’ll be surprised how far it goes. Pat it down gently to the glue area, wait a few seconds, and tap it off either onto another piece of paper or into a small bowl to re-use. The Ouickie Glue dries clear allowing your pencil color to come through beautifully! I have used a thin coat of  Aleene’s Tacky Glue, but, it gives more of a white underneath finish to the flock and your penciled color doesn’t come through as nicely.

Ready for flocking!

 Another important thing to think about as you are applying glue is to only bring the glue “up to” your image lines. Flocking on the lines softens the line, but, after it’s all dry you can go back onto the image and gently re-outline those lines with a fine black marker. This will give back your image definition of things like face, eyes, mouth, arms/legs, etc.

Finished flocking and ready to apply to your project!

The “finished flocking” image shows the results of using the Quickie Glue Pen (the face), Aleene’s Tacky Glue (the body, arm & right leg), and tinted embossing ink (left leg). I hope you’ll give flocking a second thought to using when creating your holiday cards this year … even your all occasion cards. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll enjoy the process! There’s a large selection of colors to choose from too!

Toodles from Doodles!