Crafting with...

...Kraft.

I love the natural feel Kraft card gives to a project but boy does it come in a range of shades - anything from a light 'grubby' beige to the darker 'looks like wet sand' colour.

If you are a card maker, you will probably be aware that card blanks usually come from the darker end of the colour range. So if you want something paler, this means making your own. Not a problem, after all we are crafters and we make stuff. The sticking point comes over "time" - cutting & folding card blanks adds time to your projects, especially if you are making a batch of cards. Then there are the envelopes...

How many times have you merrily made a card from scratch only to find that it doesn't fit in a standard size envelope? Again, not a problem as we can make our own but once again we have the time factor.

Time is a big issue for many folk who enjoy crafting but 'life' limits the amount of time they have available in which to do it.

Then we come to the problem of colouring straight onto kraft card.

Pencils seem to work quite well irrespective of the darkness of the card and the Derwent Inktense pencils are rich enough to give a good depth of colour as I found here...

 

...and the Derwent Coloursoft pencils also gave a nice effect...



 ...especially when keeping to a limited selection of colours and only shading parts of the image.

But...

You knew there was going to be a 'but' didn't you. My preferred medium for colouring is alcohol pens and trying them on scraps of kraft card that I had really wasn't doing anything for me. The colour of the card was too dark for the pens to really be noticed. Then I tried Crafter's Companion Neenah card in the colour "Desert Storm". Wow, what a difference. The smoothness of the card is perfect for colouring with alcohol pens and the kraft colour is pale enough to allow the colours to show.

So I printed off some of the cute Grace Drayton images...

 ...and got stuck in...

 ...I did find that it was necessary to use stronger tones than I would normally reach for but it was so great being back in my comfort zone with my pens.
What about this little cutie...

 ...isn't she adorable. Now if you look at this image you may think that I have used something white on the bib area. In fact, I used a very pale aqua shade (BT1) and I think the blue has toned down the yellow tinge of the card making it look almost white.

All the images used have come from Nicecrane Designs and are from the following digi sets...

..."A Garden of Friends" which you can find here...

...and the Grace Drayton "Nursery Rhymes" that you can find here.

My printer is still playing silly wotsits so I'm having difficulty printing the latest images from Nicecrane - boy are there some super ones. Do hop over to the Nicecrane blog to catch up with what the rest of the DT have been playing with. There is some fabulous work over there............................