Team Brae-er September Blog Hop - Back to School

Welcome to our September Team Brae-er Blog Hop. Since the children go back to school in September, we decided it was a good month for us to teach and learn some new techniques. Each stop on our hop will feature a tutorial using various Close To My Heart Products.  To purchase any of the items seen in our blog hop today, kindly contact your local consultant to place an order.  For my customers, or if you do not have a consultant and see something you would like, you may order from my website or contact me.

We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we really love feedback from our blog viewers.  By leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see. Thank you… now on to our hop!  

If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop, but if you want to follow our team's blogs, then please start at the beginning and join Brae at the Brae-er.  If you came from Tamara at Mara's Journey then you are in the right place! 

To meet the needs of my customers, I offer workshop kits by mail.  This idea was inspired by Dawn Montagano.  These kits include the stamp set supplies and instructions (not ink) to complete a minimum of 4 projects and cost $25 including postage to you.  This month's kit features 6 all occasion quick cards and also includes my cutting guide.  Participants can choose any of our Quick Card sets, but I have chosen A1157 Quick Cards - Island Greetings

When working with alcohol markers, the best choice of ink for stamping the image is Archival Black, however the regular Exclusive Ink stamp pads and Exclusive Ink Mini Pigment stamp also work well and provide more colour choice.  You just want to give the ink time to dry or use the craft heater.   I have chosen to use the saddle mini pigment ink that comes with the Z2503 Basics set.  

For this workshop, there are various options to colour in the image.  But I have chosen to focus on using the ShinHan Touch Twin markers for this tutorial.  I want to show some basic shading options that do not require you to use many marker colours.  Each of these options use just two colours for the flower and two for the stem.

I started by by making some flicking strokes with the Z2457 Marigold for the flower and 2463 Sap Green on the buds.

Next I went over the petals with the Z2452 Golden Yellow and finished the stem with with Z2454 Leaf Green.  You can also lighten areas with the Z2469 Colourless Blender Marker.

Here is another two marker combination for the flower, Z2464 Tender Pink with Z2455 Light Orange.  

I tried other combinations including 2458 Marine Blue and 2461 Peacock Green.  Here are my finished cards.  Some are coloured using sponging and the blending pen with the exclusive ink pads.  This will be shown in another tutorial.

Your next stop on the Team Brae-er Hop is Carol's blog . If you get lost along the way, you can head to Brae's blog at the Brae-er, as she has a complete blog list.

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope you enjoyed some of our favourite new products and that we inspired you to get creative using some of the designs, products and techniques seen along the way.