I explained how I made these bookmarks in my previous post. As a testament of how easy they are to make with the right tools, I made another one in the same night!
I used colored pencil swatches for this one. The top swatch is Faber-Castell Polychromos; the middle swatch is Prismacolor Premier Soft Core; and the bottom swatch is Caran d’Ache Luminance .
I recently made some Caran d’Ache Neocolor II swatches and wrote about them in a previous post. I used Color Combo stamps from Waffle Flower to print the layouts and spent about 2 hours coloring them in.
If you aren’t familiar with Neocolor II, they are highly-pigmented water-soluble crayons. You can use them dry or activate them with water.
I love making things with my manual die cutter and I have a steel rule die from Waffle Flower (obviously one of my favorite suppliers) that I use to make tags. I decided to use some of these swatches to create a bookmark.
First, I cut out the swatches I wanted to use. Then I glued them to the tag. As a finishing touch, I added a tassel.
I was so pleased with it that I decided to start on another one! It was an easy project when using the right tools.
I’m going to use Caran d’Ache Luminance and Faber-Castell Polychromos to do the other two swatches.
Stay tuned for my second bookmark!
Caran d’Ache products are the crème de la crème of art supplies. Any item they manufacture – whether it be colored pencils, water-soluble pencils, graphite sticks, etc. – is a shining jewel in an art supply collector’s studio.
I was introduced to the brand while meandering through my local art store and stumbling upon a giant open-stock display of Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels. At the time, I had no idea how to use them, but the vibrant colors beckoned to me. I picked up a tin and went to my studio.
There was a bit of a learning curve. Actually, I’m still learning different techniques. Today, though, I just felt like coloring, so I did some swatches.
I used Arches Rough Watercolor Paper which turned out to be an excellent choice. Because the paper is so toothy, I only needed to make a light pass to get adequate coverage for filling in the squares.
Eventually, I’m going to cut these out and put them in my scrapbook.
Manual die cutting machines and nesting dies are a great investment if you enjoy papercrafting projects. My creative world totally changed when I got my Spellbinder Platinum machine and saw how perfectly uniform I could make swatch cards, easily cut different shapes of paper, and, relevant to my scrapbook project, make tiny frames for tiny pictures.
Let’s start with the dies…
You will hear me talk about Waffle Flower a lot. They are a US company that works with designers to create unique stamps, dies, and other papercrafting products that you truly can’t find anywhere else. Today, I spent the afternoon cutting frames for my Scrapbook of Scraps project.
After I made several frames, I got out some of my scraps to see what interesting compositions I could make with my sheets upon sheets of color-tester splats.
QoR watercolors are super-vivid so this page of tests has lots of potential to chop up into teeny-tiny pictures. I love the way the colors flow on this particular section, but I felt like it needed some Finetec Iridescent Watercolors to make it SPARKLE. Note that I haven’t glued the frame on yet. I was just using it to find my favorite color composition.
After I added some shine and let the paint dry, I cut it the little section out and glued it onto the frame.
Here are two others that I finished today. These are re-purposed Sennelier test strips.
I haven’t glued any of them in my scrapbook yet because I’m not sure where I’m going to place them. Plus, I didn’t want to deal with anymore glue on my hands.
Stay tuned for my progress on the Scrapbook of Scraps!
I have a seemingly endless pile of color-test scraps in my studio that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. They are so bright that it would be a shame to see them in a trash can.
Papercrafting is one of my other favorite hobbies so I decided to assemble a scrapbook comprised primarily of literal scraps.
I chose a Ranger Dylusions Flip Journal because the pages are made of thick cardstock that will accept water and ink. I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m fairly certain that it won’t buckle or bleed based on the thickness and texture of the cardstock. I also liked it because it has a thick outer sleeve with an envelope attached to the inside. My only complaint about the journal is that the right-side corners are rounded which makes it difficult to put a decorative border on the edges.
I wanted to put a bright border on the inside and outside covers, so I painted ROY G. BIV squares using my beloved Sennlier L’Aquarelle paints on a long piece of Strathmore watercolor paper. I didn’t want to use thick cotton paper because I wanted to be sure the covers closed correctly.
After the paper dried, I cut some 1″ wide strips to glue on the edge of the covers. It’s not perfect – I blobbed glue too heavily on one of the strips – but, despite the glue disaster, it turned out well.
I’m probably going to put a few more things on the cover, but this was a fun Saturday project. Stay tuned for my progress!
The Color Chronicles 