Spring is in the air

Oh the post title is sooo inappropriate, I am currently looking at a snow covered garden!!

Any way, lets think warm thoughts and spring mornings because......

the MAKE IT CRAFTY CHALLENGE is:

"Spring Colours"

Now I had rather a lot of fun with this particular card as it's a combination of my two favourite mediums: Copic and coloured pencils, in other words a "hybrid"

I know I've said before that I don't tend to use pencils on Copic suitable card because its smoothness causes the pencils to smudge (oh boy the Australian themed card did until I sprayed it with fixative)

However, I would say I have found that adding pencil to Copic work smudges less, I guess the Copic ink gives the pencil something to adhere to - and I am loving the results I can achieve.  But please note, I use Copic first, then add pencil - doing the reverse may cause your Copic nibs to pick up pencil residue and over time lead to them having to be replaced.

Hair is an ideal area to benefit from the finer detail that adding a little pencil can achieve, not to mention grass and in this case the toadstool - try it for yourself and I'd love to hear how you get on.

I would recommend investing in a can of fixative to save your artwork smudging once complete - I use Winsor & Newton Artists' Fixative for pastel, charcoal and pencil which works brilliantly, but for years I used the students "budget conscious" alternative - a can of hairspray!!!

I loved seeing all those beautiful red entries and cannot wait to see what you guys create for this challenge which can be posted HERE where you will also find some lovely projects created by my fellow teamies.

In the meantime I'm entering this into the following challenges:

All that Scraps - Anything goes

Crafts and me - Use a new image

Crafty Creations Challenges - Swirly Whirly

Crafty Purple Frog Challenge - Flowers

Moving along with the times - Cute Critters

Crafty Hugs