Tag: ellen hutson

Craft to School: Let’s practice!

Here in my neck of the woods this is our final week of summer break. What? How? It’s true! So this week here on my blog I am going to be sharing some crafty ideas inspired by school. Today I begin inspired by learning to write…

When we learn to write we are given worksheets and made to practice over and over. Yet one of the things I see so often in crafting is people expecting to simply get a skill right away – myself included.

I challenged myself to first use a number of color mediums on a new (affiliate link used) Pink Ink Pumpkin stamp. I tried everything from clean color pens to watercolor pencils to distress ink as watercolor and my KOI watercolor set too. I played with minimal colors and blending styles water vs no water and so on.

I didn’t learn anything new exactly – but I did get a lot of good practice in and reminded myself of some details such as I really like clean color pens “color blended” and with little to no water. Or that my KOI watercolors are a bit opaque. With some practice down I stamped a bit in my current art journal and made a few notes.

I believe an art journal should be a place to be 100% free to write. doodle. test. play. There should be ZERO expectation of a “good” page or what it might look like.

My challenge to you today is to practice a technique or idea for at least 10 minutes. NO expectations – just “homework worksheet” practice!

stamping: monkey around with Lawn Fawn

Today I’m just monkeying around with my stamping – won’t you join me?

Sometimes it really is just fun to monkey around – and for this project I used a new Ellen Hutson exclusive set. I love the idea behind “united we flourish” and small businesses coming together- and Lawn Fawn and Ellen are two of the best I know (affiliate links used). You can find out more and check out this set on the website here.

I filmed a YouTube video to share the process of stamping + creating this fun gift tag.

My favorite is the background. The colors didn’t turn out as I expected – but I love them all the same.

Using stencils as I did here is always fun – I love ink blending! The aqua hues didn’t turn out as I expected – however in person as I look at this project I can see the subtle blue tones. That’s why I like to create without rules – you never know what you’ll come up with or like! This stencil I used (I believe) is an old Hero Arts one – but no worries if you want a similar one. There are sooo many stencil companies out there now you can easily find some!

Color medium wise I used clean color pens to work on my stamped images. So far none of mine have run out and I’m pleased overall with how they work for the coloring I do. That said – any color medium you like can work here!

Thanks bunches for tuning in – I’m going to gift my monkey stamp set + dies, as well as a few other surprises to one of you! Just leave a comment on this post and the winner will be announced in the final Camp Scrap 2017 roundup post next week. Good luck – and happy stamping!