Town home in marker and black pen

Hi there and welcome.

This is my second blog for 2017 which is going to be short and sweet. I just started back after a long hiatus and I thought I would start with this card.

Its done in Tim Holtz ranger markers - festive berries, squeezed lemonade, mowed lawn,shabby shutters, frayed burlap , also micron 005 and pigma graphic 1 archival ink pen.
The image is a digital one by tiddlyinks. They have such cute designs sometimes I wish I can own them all but obviously its not possible. Also I find that not alot of my customers like the cutesy cards. But the designs always make me smile.

'TOWN HOME'

The card is very simple as you can see here

I used the digital stamp 'town home'from their collection on buildings/backgrounds and I was just reminded of my art class many moons ago when I used to enjoy using the pen and ink technique and I just started... a little hesitant at first...still not yet fully confident but I enjoyed doing it and I thought I would share the result with you. Hope you like it and I hope it made you smile as you had a good memory while looking at it.

See you next time!


©2017rendesigns.blogspot.com

A long break

Hi there

I know you've all been wondering what's been happening with me. It's been almost a year that I haven't written a blog post. Doesn't mean I wasn't thinking about you all but I had family issues to deal with that required my attention and to me and I'm sure to everyone else.....family is very important!
What I have found is when you take an extended time off you not only lose your visitors to your blog but you kinda lose your way abit and its challenging to get back into the habit of posting again. I was toying with the ideas of starting a new blog or just not blogging at all but I thought about all the nonsense happening in our world and I said you know what.... we need more things out there that make people happy, make people smile, make people believe that happiness and peace of mind are still worth finding....and that's why I do what I do...I like to make people smile....
So here goes....I'm back! I may still take a break if it warrants it but I will try to make it shorter next time.
I want to thank those who have supported me in the past and to thank those who are now supporting me.

A Happy Father's Day Card wth a twist!

Hi there , welcome back to my blog.

Today I am working on a Father's Day card with a twist. A friend has asked me to design a father's day card for him to send to some guys he wants to have conversations with. Apparently he wants to start a sort of men's club where they would come together share tips, techniques on parenting, fatherhood, being better role models, entrepeneurship, becoming more employable etc etc. So this card is supposed to be an icebreaker.

Now he is also in MLM but he does not want to push the business unless they want to. Thus in not wanting to give them the wrong idea he has asked me to design a Father's day Card and craft a message for him. Now I am not a great writer but I did drum up something in 10 mins, which he says 'dont change it, sounds like me'. So below are pics of the inside and outside. There is one change to happen though.... while I was waiting for him to okay the message I began to craft a slightly different message, thats why the sample card reads "OUR" .... so the inside should read "My father's day wish............cherish YOUR FAMILY......continuously seek to improve YOUR FATHERHOOD ROLES."

Hope you like this Father's Day Card with a twist and let me know if you think this would work with you!



Materials used
My Favorite Things Die-namics stitched ovals inside and out
My Favourite Things Make Yourself at home stamps
Kuretake watercolor paints
White and Gold Cardstock
Sizzix Big Shot

Looking forward to seeing you on Monday for more adventures....

©2016rendesigns.blogspot.com

Party like a Celebrity

Hi there, welcome back.

Thank you guys for continuously supporting my artistic explorations.

Today I'm showcasing an invitation designed both by hand and on the computer using adobe illustrator. First I had an interview with the young man whose birthday will be celebrated by the event, to have an idea what sort of design he wanted.
He indicated glitz and glamour like a celebrity style party event with a nautical theme. ...I said ....oookay then, I will see what I can come up with.

So he wanted silver stars, action camera, musical notes (he's a pianist), red and blue and yellow colours and I said 'all of that I should place on a one-sided invitation which will also include the name of the invitee, the event,the date, the time the address"... Oh and he wanted the invite to be slim and landscape design. I said no problem but will you allow me to use judgement if needs be in the design and he said go for it

After he left I was freaking out as to what kind of crazy ...!? theme is this but nevertheless I soon calmed down and said ...you can do it ...just think...! So I got out my computer and designed this in illustrator. I assured him there would be stars but all the details he wanted was too much.



Sent this he said he liked and I advised him that when I add the red, blue and yellow cardstock with embossed words, it may change somewhat, he said he trusts me because his mom trusts me so go ahead.I tried for a long while embossing silver stars on the invite it looked ...blah....so I said why not try gold and die cut big gold stars. This was the eventual design



His text was like "WOW, WOW, WOW!" He was so excited that he gave out some of the invites before his mom could put the stamp of her restaurant logo and RSVP on the back of it for authenticity.

Wow that was a close call!
Oh the cardstock used was Red Hots, Blueberry sour and Marshmallow chick bought at Ellen Hutson.They actually gave me the colour advice re cardstock for the nautical theme.
The star die was from SSS bundle of stitched shapes.

Thanks everyone for dropping by see you on on Friday for my next adventure!
Feel free to leave a comment!

Saying it with words in a roundabout way!

Hi there . Hope your weekend was great!

Today my card is a little different to what I've been doing. I have never been really great at using just stamped words to make a design. I had up on my easel, the pic of MFT Stamps last sketch challenge no 283 and I had just received from my shippers MFT stamps 'Make yourself at Home' and I was so excited to play with these stamps.

One of the things I have started doing is just stamping the image on a piece of scrap paper to see how the image or words resonate with me and then go from there. So I'm looking at the sketch, and looking at the stamp and at the same time I was listening to www.creativelive.com and somehow that bulb clicked on in my head and I said what if I do a few words in a circle how would it look. My next engaging thought was "what colour(s) should I use", and the childhood rainbow song came into my head, and I said okay great -'red and yellow and pink and green'

By now you're wondering what is going on here but that was just me processing the light bulb event whilst being inspired by the interviews playing on www.creativelive.com.

Now I had to do it a few times but finally got it to how I wanted it to be and drum roll....here it is



The tools used were
Lawn Fawn Large stitched circles
MFT Stamp 'Make Yourself at Home
White Card stock
Kuretake paints
Dye Inks- Memento Lady Bug, SSS, Doll Pink,Color box graphic 45 Antique Moss and Lawn fawn fundamentals sunflower

I also wrote a message I would put in this card based on the stamps I used and this is what I wrote

With YOU the colours of my world
turn into a rainbow.
You make every thing brighter
and more beautiful…..

Hope you like what I've done and I say just let yourself go, immerse yourself in your art and listen to something inspirational while you are creating and believe you have the talent to do so and of course have fun!!!!
Hope to see you back here on Wednesday! Dont forget to leave a comment! Oh if you wish to use my message, I would appreciate it if you link it to my blog. Thanks!

©2016 rendesigns.blogspot.com

Black and White in splendour

Hi there...welcome back


As promised, here is another example of neutral tones in black and white. I must say I am really enjoying this colour combination and I am surprised at what I see.



You should try playing with this and just letting go...and see what happens. I started by stamping the coconut trees with black ink three times on the paper - one sort of to one side and two off either side of the paper to look like a cluster of trees.

Mixing a bit of Kuretake black paint with water, I began painting the sea into the paper. I just added paint to the brush and then painted until the ink went dry. I then added what I hope looks like sand on the beach and some shadows of the trees. Clouds were added to complete the look. The stamp I used is from 'daily bread designs'. I had to look that up as a friend of mine gave it to me for doing some work for her.



The complete list of materials
White cardstock
Recollections coconut trees stamp
Daily bread designs 'Thanks be to God'stamp
Kuretake Watercolor paints
India ink black
No 4 black velvet brush

Hope you like the card! Check back on Monday to see what I am playing with....Dont forget to leave a comment!




©2016rendesigns.blogspot.com

Simple Neutral Tones (Black and White)

Hi there folks

Welcome back to my blog.

Today I decided to try my hand at doing cards in just the neutral tones of black and white. Now my style of card is very simplistic and I love to use a white background as my negative space on a card.

So I was sitting down listening to interviews on www.creativelive.com and this idea just came to me. I know its probably not new but I decided to do a little dabbling with Kuretake black paint to watercolor a simple background for these cards... I can tell you I had a lot of fun. Firstly I began by stamping an image then just swishing the brush a bit I was able to build interest into the design.

I used

White cardstock
Kuretake Black paint
Black Velvet no 4 brush
Penny Black Sunny Days Stamp
Other Stamps
Black ink
Other Paper



These three cards were done very simply and with little to no effort. I really enjoyed just letting go and let my creative side just take over...You should try it....Its freeing....

Here's another look at all 3



If you like these cards check back on Friday for another blast of these simple monochrome watercolour cards




© 2016 rendesigns.blogspot.com