Do you ever go through phases with your crafting where you can’t get enough of one particular style or technique? I do, big time! When I first starting cardmaking, I was only really interested in diecutting, and a little stamping. I was never interested in colouring, and certainly not critter cards. Yet, at the moment, I can’t get enough of colouring critters, and I’m enjoying experimenting with different colouring mediums.

For these cards, I stamped out all the images from Mama Elephant’s Dandelion Wishes stamp set using Antique Linen distress ink, because I wanted a very pale outline so I could do some “no line” colouring. I coloured the images using Arteza coloured pencils. It was the first time I’ve really used them properly and tried to do shading, and I’m quite pleased with how they’ve turned out!

Usually when colouring, I’d choose different shades of the same colour to add depth/shadow, but this time I just used the same colour and applied a very light layer to begin with, gradually adding more colour in the areas you would expect to be shaded.

I fussy cut each of the images (I use X-Cut non-stick scissors and I love them) and used liquid glue to apply them to the background. I made the backgrounds by applying watery layers of blue/green and pink/purple paint to watercolour paper – I was aiming for a dreamy/whimsical look – do you think it worked?

For the first card, I used the “A Million Little Wishes” sentiment from the same set, and stamped a few more dandelion flowers in Wheat ink by Concord and 9th. For the second card, I added a sentiment from another Mama Elephant set, and again added a few more dandelion petals, this time in Stardust from C&9.

I mounted each panel onto a top folding A2 card base that I made from Whisper cardstock by Gina K.

I like how sweet and simple these are, and I think I’ll be doing more colouring with pencils soon!