Fifteen Shades of Grey

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. It's hard to believe it's June already, it doesn't seem like five minutes ago we were celebrating the start of 2016 and now we're nearly halfway through. Talking about 'June' I lost the month of June stamp from one of my Kaisercraft stamp sets (which as it was a calendar stamp set made it a bit useless) last year and I finally found it yesterday! I only have to find my Cat's Pyjamas Villain-esque moustache die and I'll been as happy as a cat in PJ's (which probably isn't that happy really when you think about it lol). It's even smaller than the June stamp so I'm not going to hold my breath.

Sorry the image isn't very clear - I think the camera is sulking.

Today's card features my beloved 'Starlet' from the Crafter's Companion Verity Rose range. I'm not sure what it is about Starlet that's captured my imagination but I'm really loving colouring her in different ways at the moment. Today I've coloured in Greyscale and as the title suggests I've used 15 shades of grey to colour her in! I used Promarkers Warm Greys 1 - 5, Cool Greys 1 - 5 and Ice Greys 1- 5. I stamped the image using Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Sheena's stamp card and there was a little bleeding outside the outside edge of the image when I coloured her in but not too much. Once I'd coloured the image I added white highlights to her eyes and pearl necklace using a while gel pen and added some Spectrum Noir clear Sparkle brush marker to her hair gem then covered it with a thin layer of Glossy Accents. I used a ticket corner punch to remove the corners and mounted the topper onto a piece of black card stock. I layered this onto a piece of silver glitter card. I cut a sheet of A4 black card down to 28cm and scored it in half at 14cm. Using a score board I dry embossed two lines down each side of the card front and three top and bottom of the card for added interest and then added some thin strips of glitter card between the embossed borders. I added the topper panel to the card leaving a larger space below so I can add a sentiment at a later date. I decided the silver glitter strips were a bit 'in your face' so went over them with a black marker so that the card appears a slate grey. Unfortunately as I was colouring the strips in I managed to smear black marker ink all on the topper - I nearly cried! Luckily I remembered it was alcohol based so used my Promarker blender pen all over the outside lines of the stamped image paying special attention to the smudge marks. I'll be honest with you, to begin with the blender pen made the marks look worse but I decided to let the piece dry and see what happened before panicking. I watched a couple of programmes on TV then when I went back in to my crudy I found that the marks had practically vanished.

Here are a couple more photos.

A close up of the Starlet 15 shades of grey card

Can you spot where the smear marks were??

I really enjoyed making this card today even if I did nearly ruin it with smudge marks *note to self - remember to wipe your hands in future*. I got a couple of small orders in the post today (both from Craft Stash - a Let's Celebrate stamp and an emoji die by Spellbinders) so I'm hoping to have a play with them over the weekend. I'd also like to colour one of the Verity Rose images in browns so it looks sepia. I've never tried that before but I think the images would suit that style. As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the comment section below. I hope you all have a brilliant weekend, hopefully the weather will improve and it won't be quite so cold! Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx