Instagram Competition Kuretake Festive Fun Part 2

Every day these days I'm commited...commited to thinking up a different way of lettering the Christmas word of the day in the Instagram Kuretake Christmas Challenge (#kuretakefestivefun) that I showed you a few days ago.

This is a compilation photo of my first 9 days, some of which I showed you in my previous post:

This was Thurday's word:

Written with a gold pen with a Wink of Stella clear glitter pen on top. (Glitter doesn't show on photos).

Friday's word was 'Angel' and for that I did a cartoony picture:

And today, Saturday, the word was 'Snowman.  I considered doing another drawing but I thought it would be more creative to think up a new way of doing the challenge.  

So, icing sugar and a chiselled brush on a kitchen cutting mat it was:

So that's it, right up to date.  Not all my posts will be about this, honest, it's just what I'm currently doing and it's christmassy, so it seemed appropriate to put on here.

To follow me on Instagram, I'm #creativeflourishes and this challenge is #kuretakefestivefun.

 

Thanks for stopping by, other creative flourishes posts coming to this very blog soon,

Nicky,

Creative Flourishes

#kuretakefestivalfun Instagram Competition

As I mentioned in my post the other day, I have recently restarted using Instagram (#creativeflourishes - appropriately enough ;)  )

I started again when I came across an old abandoned waterworks building that was a photographer's dream.  I don't know if I'm doing it right but I get the impression that you can't put lots of pictures in one go on Instagram (maybe you know different? I'm learning!...)

If you like looking at decaying old buildings and want to see the rest in that series, see the link in my right sidebar to my flickr account, swirlyclicks.

But the reason I am on Instagram more now - daily in fact - is that I am taking part in the Kuretake Festival Fun Lettering Instagram (UK) competition. We are given a word, a Christmassy word, to write each day in a creative way. The winner of the competition - ONE winner - will get to win a collection of Zig Kuretake products, which will include Wink of Stella glitter pens, I think....  (But of course it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part!....) 

I've been doing this, faithfully every day since the start of December and am trying to vary the style of writing I use, and the products.  They would also like you to use Kuretake products if you have them - and I do, as I have SUCH a massive collection of all sorts of pens, pencils, the lot...  I really could open my own shop! 

These three are my favourites of the ones that I've done so far:

The word 'Candle' was my first one  Written with a Zig calligraphic pen and coloured in with crayons:

Day 2's theme was 'Rudolph'.  From the time that I read the theme and had got upstairs into my craft room to carry out the task, I had forgotten how to spell! 

(Someone on Instagram did kindly point out that the spelling suited the lettering style!)  This was written in red, and had a shadow effect added with a black pen.  I then embossed the red part with an embossing pen and used clear glossy embossing powder on top.

Finally for this post, was this one:

'Stocking'.  I drew the stocking onto the red card background, wrote my letters in black and filled in and around the letters with a brush using Zig white opaque ink.  This type of ink is not meant for large areas, its more of a small correction solution but I love how really white and opaque it is, covering the red completely.

(Disclosure: Despite how it looks, I'm not being asked to promote Zig/Kuretake products, I'm just telling you how I'm using them to do this project).

Hope you enjoyed looking at these and maybe would like to take a look yourself.  Look up #kuretakefestivefun on Instagram to see other people's take on the subject.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, see you again soon,

Nicky,

Creative Flourishes

xx

Making your own Card & Tag Embellishments

..using stickers and charity shop finds.

Stickers as they come in their packets can look fun but when individually put on other items they can look 'lost'.  The remedy for this is to give them their very own individual background.  You can do any theme - here I just added random colours to these background squares:

...and added monster stickers to make 'inchies',  This example (above) was my take on a 'Mixed Media Morsels' follow along on YouTube from Cat Hands.    (Morsel No. 6)

This way you can make the stickers bigger and into other shapes - in this case, square.  Just add glue when you need to stick them down elsewhere - or use a temporary glue if you want to move them around.

You can also make sticker embellishments for christmas cards and tags which is what I have done here.

For the background on these embellishments I found some textured wallpaper for £1 a roll in a charity shop.  I had two types, one with textured squares and the other was a general spotted texture, both looked like snow, which was the look I was going for.

It's very simple to make these sticker backgrounds. I just cut out some of the wallpaper, found some blue paint (in this case, Twinkling H20's for shimmer) and a selection of stickers.  (These are old ones from Paperchase).  For this effect it's best to use puffy stickers.

I painted some sky in rough squares on the textured wallpaper, but be mindful of the paint pooling!

Then, when the paint was dry, I added the stickers.

Cut them out and you can then add some shading underneath your character with a grey pen to ground it. It looks more professional!

And voila!  These will make great tags, especially for children, and they could help in the making of them too.  These embellishments could have other uses too such as adding them to christmas dinner place labels....

Hope you enjoyed this simple craft and it has inspired you to have a go.

Thanks for stopping by today, see you again very soon,

Nicky,
Creative Flourishes
xx

.

A Creative Flourishes Return Post

Hello Again!


I am back!  It's at Christmas time when I get the urge to be more crafty and when I've done something worth showing I do like the idea of sharing it with others.  As I used to...on here....before...  many moons ago...!

In fact I've missed this space as a 'showcase' for various different projects that I've been doing and plan to gradually start showing some of them - along with any new stuff, of course.

I've not ventured into Blogland and other people's blogs for ages.  To my mind it was never the same when Google changed their blog viewer - I've even forgotten what it was called, it was so long ago.   I remember moving onto Feedly, but it has never been the same.  I shall try to perservere though.

In order to find out what people are doing in the art world, I've got myself more into YouTube (just watching!), Pinterest (my obsession shows with my 2.2K followers and 8.2K pins! - Pinterest name Nicky{Creative Flourishes} and specialist Facebook groups.  Just lately, I've started using Instagram again (#creativeflourishes) as I'm currently doing a Christmas lettering challenge (which I shall tell you about soon).

As far as life goes, I've changed jobs from working in a Pharmacy to working in a stationery shop (part time).  As I am obsessed with all things stationery, this was a good move, I think... (although maybe not so much now, the shop has been bought out and we are waiting to hear what's happening next....!)

This has been enough rambling for one post, I will be back soon with my first 'Official Back to Blogging Craft Post' and I have a plan to do many more.  

Hope you will be here to join me,

Nicky,

Creative Flourishes

xx