Color Swatches

I've been struggling with my mojo this week, and so to keep doing something crafty still, I decided to organize my ink stash. Organizing seem to help, be it to calm and de-stress me, or at least give me the sense that I'm still doing something craft related.

I re-organized my ink stash by color, and while at it decided to do swatches. Maybe it will help me use them more. But overall, swatches are a great tool. I use it for my Copics, why not for ink pads right?

So first up, Close to My Heart Inks. I honestly love these ink colors, and especially the card stock coordinates! I love how rich and unique the colors are!

Next up are my Distress Ink pads and markers. It was only through this exercise that I realized I had more pens than ink pads, and I'm lacking quite a bit.

And lastly, my Hero Arts inks. I love love love Hero Arts inks. The colors are so dark and vibrant and it always brings out a pop to whatever project you do! The first column are Shadow Ink colors, and the next 3 columns are the Mid-Tone Shadow Inks . And the very last column are the new Ombre ink pads. I realized I still miss a few ink pads. Maybe this labor day weekend sale somewhere can help me complete the colors.

Lastly, here's the Spectrum Aqua line. After doing this swatch I realized the colors are a bit disappointing. It looks like the ones you buy from Michael's, the Artist Loft brand of watercolors in pans. There's nothing special to the colors really. Or maybe it's just me? After all I'm not an artist. 

Anyways, I hope this helps you guys out there who are planning to buy or just want to have an idea of the colors. It certainly helped me. Especially on the markers, I sort of have an idea which colors blend well and don't, and which ones I have to lay lightly. 

Happy long weekend everyone!

Gorjuss - Thinking of You

Hi  Everyone! First of I apologize for my super looong absence. So much stuff has happened to me in the last month that this hobby of mine had  to take a back seat. On the other hand, I have been coloring a lot lately. I've finally purchased my very own set of Copics, and have spent quite some time trying to learn and getting the hang of it. That, and I also recently acquired Spectrum Noir Aqua. If you follow my blog you know I'm a big Spectrum Noir user, so when they came out with Aqua I just have to have it!

Today's card uses a stamp set from Gorjuss. I believe it's Ruby. I am obsessed with a few brands lately, namely Gorjuss and La-La Land. So anyway, this card features Ruby, and I used Spectrum Aqua to color her. I'm actually quite surprised at how great the Aqua pens are. The colors are so vibrant, and mixing the colors was pretty easy. I've tried a version of this using Distress Markers but I wasn't able to achieve the look I wanted. There were too many water marks that's too distracting, so I switched to trying out the Aqua instead. And boy was I so pleased!

So, I used Crimson and Burgundy for her dress and shoes, Peach for her skin tone with a touch of Topaz, and for her hair I used a mixture of Sepia and Terracota I believe. I used Black for the stripes on her socks. The swing was colored using Fawn. For the background I used Tim Holtz Peacock Feathers Distress Ink with a mix of Frayed Burlap. As you can see coloring Ruby with the Spectrum Noir Aqua looks pretty clean, but when it came to the background using Distress Markers, you can see the water marks and it actually bled to her socks too. I have yet to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I used a La-La Land border die for the side border, and stamped the sentiment using Lawn Fawn's Chit Chat.

I love all of Gorjuss' stamps. I think she's just too cute! Not to mention it comes in a very very pretty case too! I buy mine from MarkerPop, they seem to have a more complete collection of Gorjuss stamps.

More to come! Hope you guys like it! It's not perfect, but I promise to keep practicing!