How's your Sunday going...

...we've had a real mixed bag of weather here.

It hasn't been cold but we've had fine showers off and on for most of the day.

I went over to Mum's to take her shopping and I would swear that these chives have multiplied since last week...

...they are by the front gate post on Mum's driveway...

 ...although they weren't planted there by her she hasn't pulled them up because the flowers are so pretty and they attract the honey bees. They also remind us both of Dad as he loved to eat chives and onions. The tiny pink flowers with them are hardy geraniums which seem to have gone mad this year but look really lovely in the way they tumble over the edge of Mum's raised beds.

Mum was always the gardener in our family although these days she limits her garden to things that pretty much look after themselves and come up year after year. Dad could never tell a flower from a weed and this lovely bloom would have totally confused him...

 ...it is a paeony rose (peony) and has the most wonderful scent...

 I snapped these pics between showers...

...and you can see the raindrops on the leaves.

Dad would never have considered this to be a 'rose' in any shape or form - his idea of a rose was the typical climber or bush rose and was probably the only flower that he was ever able to be confident in recognising. Over the years he did most of the donkey work in the garden under Mum's direction but would never have considered himself a gardener.

Mum's front garden looked very pretty today with all the shades of pink nestling against the green and I'm sure it was all thanks to a certain Angel - thank you Dad..................................................

Happy Father's Day...

...to all those lovely Dads out there.

May you all have a lovely peaceful day in which you can relax and follow your dreams.

Thinking of you Dad even though you are no longer with us to share the day...........................

How do you...

 ...I love to sit and colour.

I can happily lose myself for hours with some stamped/printed images and a set of pens or pencils.

Whilst I'm not a fan of repeating the same image in the same colour-way (boring...) I will merrily spend my time colouring multiples of the same image - but in different colour combos.

This is another version of the RoseRed image by Krista Smith (Saturated Canary)...

 ...this time coloured as an ash-blonde with a lilac gown using Spectrum Noir pens.
Skin: TN1, TN2, FS1, FS7
Hair: TN1, EB1, EB2
Dress: HB1, HB2, HB3 and a touch of PP1 added to the HB1 on the skirt

I hope none of you have fallen off your chairs because I never usually remember what colour pens I've used LOL

I really love seeing how different colour combos work.

Here is my little blondie side-by-side with the ginger image I showed you the other day...

...the same image but looking so very different just because of using different colours.
Oh, and before you ask...
Skin: FS3, FS4, FS5, CR3
Hair: TN1, GB1, GB6, GB7
Dress: DG1, DG2, DG4 and a touch of EB2 added to the DG1 on the skirt
...bet you didn't think I'd be able to remember - now did you!

I used the blender pen on both images to help even out the shading on the dress area.

I find colouring so peaceful and relaxing (unlike the hassle I had up-loading these pics to the PC - for some reason the automatic loading of the memory card doesn't seem to be working grrrr) and would be perfectly content to while-away my time pursuing this pastime.

Is there a specific aspect of crafting that you find particularly relaxing?............................................

Are we there yet?...

...is a chant that most adults dread hearing.

UK weather can never be relied upon to play nice so more often than not when you are travelling somewhere and there are children involved it will be - too hot - too cold - too wet - and as a result...the little folk are BORED!!!

Why am I mentioning this?

I have one of the smash-type journals from a recent DoCraft range about travel and on one of the pages "Are we there yet?" is shadow printed as part of the design...but I digress...

Over at the Saturated Canary Challenge blog, the latest challenge (#44) is to colour the hair of an image differently. So I decided to colour "Boobielove" with purple hair...

 ...and her clothes are mauve & aqua which match rather well with the 'Are we there...' page in the journal. Sorry the pics aren't better but I think you can just make out the saying...

 ...or at least you can see the word 'yet' LOL
I decided that I would use some coloured images to decorate some of the pages in this journal...

 ...and this is my first one.
I didn't want to add too much decoration to the page as this will be added to as I complete it with journaling, notes and keepsakes...

...obviously this will be a work in progress as I work my way through the journal but I hope this is okay as my entry for the current challenge......................................................................

On a bit of a roll...

...with the colouring.

Meet "RoseRed", another lovely miss by the designer Krista Smith...

...I've had this image a while but the other day when I was sorting through my images there was something about her that just screamed 'redhead' - so I gave her a mop of ginger hair and a lovely pale olive green gown. I think this one is definitely heading for my Smash book.

A colleague has her birthday this coming weekend so I used the Red/White/Blue "Boobielove" that I coloured the other day...

...the blue background paper is from last year's DoCraft range 'Portabella Road' as is the little blue polka dot bow.
Ah, the bow...

 ...yep, the bow wasn't on the image when you saw it last. In the centre of her tee-shirt was a charity ribbon which I had the grand idea of adding blue to so that it was Red/White/Blue like the rest of the image - the ink bled and attempts to tidy it up just seemed to make things worse - hence the appearance of the bow.
I'm not sure of the make of this ribbon but I do love it (and just happen to have a few metres of the stuff)...

...it is from a company that did some fabulous Scandinavian type design ribbons for Christmas (I have a few of those too **rollseyes**).
This is the finished card...

...it is 'tent-fold' and A5 in size. The image was rough cut and mounted on a doily. You might also notice a bit of 'bling' - after all - a girl has to have a bit of bling on her birthday................................

I have loads of 'Canaries'...

...the 'Saturated' kind - not feathered.

Krista Smith (Saturated Canary) creates the most super images for colouring and as all the ones I have are digi, it is fun to be able to print them off in a size to suit the project I have in mind.

I love colouring but have to 'own-up' to not having done very much of it recently...all the usual excuses; tired, busy...LIFE!

However, having now sorted out a storage solution which enables me to have one of my sets of pens on my desk, I'm finding that I'm reaching for the pens to...'just colour that little bit there...' or 'think I've got time to just colour that bit...' It's working well and I've done more colouring this week than I've done in ages.

I can't say that I've dashed off loads of coloured images but as you can see...

 ...these three are finished and ready to be made into something.
I printed these ones slightly bigger (2 images to a sheet of A4 rather than my normal 4 to a sheet)...

 ...as I want to make a few more A5 size cards and this size image gives the sort of effect that I want - decent size image but still space for decoration. I also wanted to get a collection of images done in this size so that I can use them to decorate my Smash books.
This little miss was a freebie from Krista and I've kept to a Red/White/Blue theme as this makes me think of Summer & Boats as well as being patriotic...

 ...'Boobielove' was given free in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness but it can so easily be adapted for any charity by just changing the colour of the ribbon.
This little miss is all frills & flounces...

...'Jules' was another freebie - don't you just love all that hair. I have kept the colour scheme very pastel with aqua & lilac'y pink.

I haven't shown you a 'close-up' of the other 'Boobielove' image as I'm hoping to get her made up into something for a challenge over at the Saturated Canary Challenge Blog.

So there you go, proof that getting organised has also been a motivation to get colouring again. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my pens and if they are not in the right order for me to use, they just don't get used. I have to say that this is not something new that has developed over time. If I think back to when I was a child (no comments about me being able to remember back that far - thank you! LOL) I probably spent as much time putting my colouring pencils into order as I did actually using them. I certainly have no excuse now with my Spectrum Noir pens as they are in the order that I want and close to hand.

Ummm, think that bit just needs a touch more TN2............................................................

Let's talk tools...

...or rather, the storage of them.

For many paper crafters (especially card makers) their most important tools are their pens and/or colouring mediums - whether that be inks, paints...whatever.

Regular visitors will know that I have a bit of a thing for pens (I might have just one or two............hundred **rollseyes**). However, if they are not readily to hand I find them a pain to use. I really don't want to be sorting through plastic boxes to find the next colour I want to use.

So you can imagine how I felt about this little lot...

...as a result of promotional offers I had finally managed to complete my set of Spectrum Noir pens but as you can see, although they are well packaged they are not exactly user friendly.

So what was the solution?

I've seen lots of ideas on the web about storing pens, many of which use CD/DVD racks - great ideas but not suitable for the space I had in mind for this set of pens.

Crafter's Companion came up with their own idea a while ago but I've been umming & arring as to whether I wanted to spend that sort of money on storage (they ain't cheap)...

...but after having the pens sitting around not being used because it was too much of an effort to find colours, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it.

This really wasn't working for me...

...too much 'faffing' around as the shades were split between different colour families - pastels, brights, darks etc. Yes I know that I could have re-arranged the pens but I would still have ended up with colour ranges split between different containers. So I gave in.

Taking advantage of a Demo-day promotion at my local Spectrum Noir retailer, a loyalty voucher and some pennies that I had been saving, I now have this... 

...all neat & tidy and readily to hand, sitting on my desk.

I spent some time arranging the colours - no I didn't put them in the same order as the colour chart as that order doesn't make a lot of sense to me (the colours seem to be arranged to fit on the paper rather than in a logical order). I decided to arrange them in a similar order to my Copics and it works for me.

Now with money tight for everyone at the moment I know that a lot of folks will think that all the money spent on those trays could have been used for other stash - yes it could, but I had already bought the pens which was a considerable amount of money sitting there going to waste because they were not easy to get at. I'm not completely daft; I thought about it long and hard and then only pursued this solution when there was a promotion that enabled me to save some money - something I try to do with any 'considered' purchase.

My pens are organised, usable and they don't take up too much space and guess what...I sat and did some colouring last night...................................................................