Prairie Sky Paper Crafts

Top left was coloured with Stampin' Blends. Top right was coloured with Stamp n' Write markers. Bottom was coloured with watercolour pencils and a blender pen.  I love colouring. Adding dimension and my own touch to the cards I make is relaxing, and I can customize it however I want. Stampin' Up! has a few different colouring mediums, but they all require a little bit of knowledge before you get started.  One of the first questions I usually get asked is how do I know what ink to use? Watercolour, colouring pencils and Blends (alcohol markers) are unique, and require their own starting points.  Here's a breakdown of the different inks. Classic Stampin' ink : can be used for general stamping (stamping directly onto paper). This ink is waterbased. It cannot be used for any colouring medium involving water or blender pens. However, you can pick up the ink with an aquapainter or blender pen and apply colour to your image.  Craft Stampin' ink : can be us

Once upon a time, this blog was called papersparkle. At the time, I was a papercrafter- not yet a Stampin' Up demonstrator. When I joined Stampin' Up!, I left the blog name, and created a Facebook page called Stampin' with Andrea. It was suggested I get my page up and running as soon as possible, and at the time, that's what seemed like the most logical choice. Last year, I started to think more about the direction I wanted to take my business, and how I wanted to change it to better reflect what I am about, and what is important to me.  I'm a prairie girl- born and raised in Manitoba. I have lived on the prairies most of my life- I went to college in Brandon, MB and moved around to several small towns and cities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan until I met my husband in 2002. He was in the military, and we moved to Trenton, Ontario and Halifax, NS, and then back to Winnipeg. When he retired, we decided we wanted to move back to the East Coast. While I do love it

I am so happy to see the end of these party invitations!  My son's birthday is coming up. He originally wanted me to do a pizza theme card, but that just wasn't happening for me, so I decided to do sleeping bags for his sleepover party. Couldn't be easier, right? That's what I thought too.  It was a recipe for disaster from start to end, but they are done, and he's happy(ish) with them, which is all that matters.  I was laughing to myself while I was creating them- I was making every mistake in the book. Just goes to prove, it doesn't matter if you've been papercrafting for a while, or are just starting out, mistakes can happen. I cut the paper the wrong direction the first time. When I got everything sorted out, I taped the  designer paper (Best Route) onto the Pineapple Punch cardstock then stamped the sentiment (from Happy Birthday Gorgeous), and decided I wanted to emboss it, using silver embossing powder. I put the sleeping bag and pillows onto the

I knew it had been a while since I updated my blog, but logging in, I was surprised to see how long. Spring is here, things are starting to grow, and a new season has begun. Fall has always been my favourite season, but spring is a close second. Buds appearing on trees, grass and flowers sprouting, and things starting to buzz.  April is a busy month for us. Both kids have birthdays this month, I've got a fundraiser for 10,000 Carrots Bunny Rescue on April 14 (if you'd like more information, check out my Facebook page ).   Back to this card. I am so in love with how it turned out. I love having a creative business, and feeding off the creativity of others. I saw a similar technique from a Stampin' Up! demonstrator in the UK, and was intrigued by what he had created. For his card, he used reinkers, and clear embossing powder to get an oxidized metal look. I tried so many variations of colour and layering and couldn't get the look he achieved, so I looked around my