Pretend Pencil Sketching...

Hi everybody,

Jill here.  How are you all feeling today?

I was on Instagram the other day, and the guys at Mama Elephant posted this amazing picture to celebrate 'National Elephant Day'.  It was so simple, yet beautiful and brilliant.  It was the 'Ella and friends' set, and it looked like it had been pencil sketched.  I fell in love with it instantly, and knew I had to try something similar...

I don't even know how they did it to be fair, but certainly mine doesn't come close to how awesome theirs looked, haha.  Never mind, practise makes perfect, eh?

I used grey colouring pencils, but I think it would have looked much better using actual pencils.

I used Mama Elephant's 'Woodland Gifts' to create my 'sketch'.  I stamped out my scene using a really pale ink, and followed/sketched over the lines using a dark grey colouring pencil with a lighter grey to blend.  I introduced a touch of colour and some Glossy Accents to the balloon for a little interest.  I stamped the sentiment in grey ink, and matted onto an Avery Elle 'Truffle' note card.   Obviously this technique is all about the simplicity, so I left it there.

*update*

I've had a try with a normal pencil, and a little shading and blending, so thought I'd share where that got me...

...I actually much prefer this as it's a lot darker and a lot more intense.

What a relaxing technique though?!  I really enjoyed it and can't wait to give it a little more time.

I hope you like both efforts, and would love to see if any of you have given this technique a try yet, if so, maybe leave a link below and we can share our findings?

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx

  

         

Mini Mice Shakers...

*To avoid any confusion...this is one of my posts for the amazing, Make The Day Special Blog...I just like to share here too*

Hi everybody,

Hope you're well.

I've got some bright and bold watercoloured shakers to share with you today...

Which I brought, slightly, back down to earth with the help of some vellum.

And, just for a change, (she jokes), I used all Mama Elephant goodies...I can't help it, I just look at them and I need to play with them!

I started by die cutting three circles from my panel.  I then took the uber cute little mice from the 'Tandem Rides' set, and stamped them out on my leftover circles.  I coloured them using the Zig Clean Colour Pens with water - such vibrant colours!  

I then used the 'Zenith Borders' set;  repeatedly stamping out one of the borders and clear heat embossing, to create my background, ready for some smooshing and washing across with various Distress Inks, (Mermaid Lagoon, Mustard Seed, and Picked Raspberry).  Now I love me some bright and bold colour - but my background ended up resembling a ker-azy tie-dye t-shirt..a bit much, even for me, so I muted it slightly by covering in vellum.

I adhered some acetate behind my windows, surrounded in shaker tape, added all the delicious sequins and glitters I wanted to use, and covered the back with a piece of acetate - it's such an easier way of sealing everything in so you can then line your background up without needing an extra 3 hands!  I cut the 'Friends' die a few times and covered the front in Black Sparkle embossing powder.  I then stamped out the 'Happy Birthday' from the 'Woodland Gifts' set, (love, love, love this font!), and, again, heat embossed in Black Sparkle.  I added the little speech bubble from the 'Tandem Extras' set for a bit of extra fun and lined up my little critters along the back, adhering them to a piece of card, and then putting the whole thing together.  There was quite a lot going on already (understatement of the year!), so I skipped on embellishments!

Oh, I also added a little trim of die cut grass behind each little window - but it kind of got swallowed up by all the mayhem haha. 

As always, everything is linked below, so go check out the cuteness.

See you next week where, I promise, I'll 'step away from the Mama Elpehant'...maybe ;)

Jillx