Here’s how to create the look of runny honey with Pigment Sprinkles and Honey Bee

There are no mistakes in stamping... only happy accidents. How many times have you heard that? Read on to find out how a happy accident resulted in this card, which just happens to be one of my favourite Honey Bee projects so far. 

I absolutely love the “runny honey” effect in the background. I created this using Pigment Sprinkles which I dabbed onto the edge of the paper using a dry brush. Then I spritzed with water towards the centre so the colour ran into the card.

This project was the result of one of those happy accidents. It was supposed to be an aperture card but, somehow, things weren’t going well. Instead, I slotted the watercolour paper into the circular hole; ideal if you need to keep your card flat for posting. Just don't add the ribbon, like I did!

Two ways to use Pigment Sprinkles

Pigment sprinkles add a watercoloured, naturalistic look to any project and I love them! I just wish I'd bought them sooner.

I’ve used them in two ways for this project. For the pineapple, I wet the watercolour paper, sprinkled on my pigment and spritzed it liberally with more water to give this washy look.

For the background, I flicked on some sprinkles using a dry brush and only spritzed very lightly. This made the different colours within the pigment separate to give this fun multi-coloured look.

When I ran the pineapple body through the Big Shot, because it was watercolour paper, the pieces didn’t fall out easily, so I quickly taped them in place from behind as I liked the look. I hesitate to advise how to recreate this look, as all die-cutting machines are calibrated differently but you can try thicker cardstock or maybe two pieces – the top one will be cut all the way through while the bottom one should be cut partially to give you the pattern without all the pieces falling out. 
 

Meerkat Week: A totally tropical finale

Bringing Meerkat Week to a close is this totally tropical card which we made at Crafty Friday at the beginning of the month. I sponged my background and then stamped the meerkats on top, which is why they have a slightly blue tinge to their faces, but the ladies are no fan of sponging so chose to brayer theirs instead.

This really would look better if the meerkats were masked first using a sticky note. You can brayer or sponge your background, but if you’re sponging, you have to be very careful not to disturb the mask: sweep the sponge away from the mask instead of towards it. Brayering is more forgiving as you are rolling the mask down with each stroke of the brayer. 

 

Meerkat Week: Silhouetted meerkats

I take my hat off to the first person to come up with this silhouette idea. But there are so many versions of this by now that I can’t work out who was the originator.

Begin by masking and brayering a lovely bright sunset, then all you do is stamp your image, then colour the whole lot in black. How easy is that?

Brayering is easy but most people, in my experience, give up too early and are disappointed with their results. The keys are:

1. Start OFF the edge of the paper so you don't get a hard line where the ink begins... AND

2 Keep going: brayer over and over and over again until you get a good even colour distribution. 
 

Timeless Tropical with the brightest of brights

On cold winter days, a splash of tropical colour is always welcome. The beautiful Tropical Oasis Suite is perfect for brightening up dark days but it’s easy to go overboard and end up with a project which takes you until spring to complete.

For my Stampy Buffet, I kept things relatively simple with this project CASEd from Cindy Elam. Guests could die-cut or fussy-cut the stamped flowers, and the punched greeting is as quick as they come.

With a juicy ink pad such as Lovely Lipstick, used here, you don’t need more ink on your blender pen when colouring the image; in fact, adding extra ink can just make it blotchy. Instead, I just dragged the ink from the centre of the flower to add some depth.

Home to Roost Sale-a-Bration stamp set

This is my other joint favourite stamp set from Sale-a-Bration. It's called Home to Roost and we made this card with it on Crafty Friday last week.

The images are stamped in Crumb Cake, then coloured using ink pad lids and Blender Pens. Calypso Coral for this handsome cockerel's comb, Pool Party and Bermuda Bay for his tummy and tail feathers, Crushed Curry and Mango Melody for his back and chest.