Diamond Art

Hi there!  I have not been active too much this year with my blog – apologies!  Most of my card making has been assembling kits that I bought from other people…  But I have a project (not a card) that I’d like to share….

I just finished a Diamond Art project from Leisure Arts.  I started this before thanksgiving and did a little bit at a time – it was a great “I’ll spend 10 minutes tonight on this project”.  Because of that, it took me quite a while to finish – but I’m really happy with the results.  Now I just need to get it framed for next year!

Here’s the finished product:

 

This was a fun project. I did learn a few things as I made it – so I’ll share those tips with you. 

What didn’t work well:

-When I first opened up the package I put each of the things of diamonds into a divided container – but there weren’t enough spots and I used a wet erase marker on the plastic. The problem is I couldn’t always tell which one was which (because the marker rubbed off) and because I had some in bags and some in the caddy it made it harder to do. 

-I also did the transition at my dining room table and made sort of a mess with the diamonds – and a lot of them were in the carpet…..

-My cat LOVED to lick the fabric – so every time I would work on the project, I had to shoe her away… Not sure why she liked it so much!

What worked great:

-I used the cutter pillar light table – that made it a lot easier on my eyes and that worked really well – you can see the design on the light table below. Made it much easier.

-I bought This kit on Amazon that had pens that could do multiple diamonds at a time – that made things much easier – it was only a few dollars and made things a lot better.

-The kit also had containers for every color which I labeled with Avery labels (that I cut to fit) and wrote the code on them. I would recommend doing that from the beginning  since I lost diamonds every time I transferred. 

I took the kit with me on a trip – it’s a great project to take with you – lightweight, not a lot of pieces and you can do it just for a little bit. 

If you decide to do one of these for a holiday or for a gift – give yourself enough time to get it done.

Thanks to Leisure Arts for the opportunity to try this project – it was a lot of fun and I’m really impressed with the outcome! I will definitely do another one!

Hope you had a merry Christmas & have a wonderful New Year! I hope to be back more  in 2020!

Jennifer


Review – leisure arts 30 pack premium colored pencils

I am happy to have my dad as guest poster on my blog. When I went to Creativation, I got a set of the leisure arts premium colored pencils. I have several sets of pencils but my dad has way more – since he does lots of drawings with colored pencils – so I figured he would know best if they were good….

So he used them in his most recent drawing.

Here’s his review –

I used the LEISURE ARTS 30 pack premium colored pencils artist

quality for my latest drawing.

I am not an artist, but I try to use my

spare time wisely and have made a few color drawings that my

friends seem to enjoy.

The color selection for the Leisure

Arts 30 pencils is adequate for getting the basic drawing

down, the color went down smoothly and can be darkened with

layering passes. The pencils came pre sharpened and ready

to use. Mistakes can be erased easily using these pencils

without leaving color smears. I like these pencils, because

of the chosen colors.

I hope you enjoy the attached picture.

Regards,

John

And here’s his awesome picture!

A close up

Isn’t it great? I hope you enjoyed his art & his review! Thanks Dad!

Although I received the colored pencils for free, all opinions in this review were my dads and he was in no way influenced by the company.

You can get the pencils by clicking this affiliate link below – this means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.

Buy Premium Colored Pencils


First WordPress post & Marker Review & Valentines Card

Hi!

I’m pretty excited – I just transferred my blog over to wordpress from blogger.  I did it the easy way (and used fiverr to have someone do it).  I’m glad I did it and I’m super glad I didn’t have to learn how to do it and was able to have it done for an affordable price!

Looking at new & exciting things to do for Crafty Card Gallery this year 🙂  If you have cards you would like to submit to the app, email me at craftycardgallery at gmail dot com 🙂

When I was at CHA I went to a Prime Publishing blogger event and had the opportunity to meet someone from Share A Sale (who recommended me moving my blogger account).  If you’re interested in Share A Sale you can find more information here.

 

I got a set of these great 36 Pack Double Ended Markers from Leisure Arts.  I used them to do some coloring this week and LOVE them!  They were great markers. They are water based and have a bullet tip (fine point – great for getting into the little nooks & crannies when coloring) and a brush tip (great for covering large areas at one time).  These markers colored smoothly (and quickly) on different types of papers.  They work better than some of the more expensive markers I have.  I got these markers for free – but I definitely feel like they are a great value at their $9.99 price.

As part of the affiliate program from Share A Sale, my blog readers get 15% off on their orders at Leisure Arts!  What a deal!

 

I also used a cool Sakura Permapaque pen I got there to do the blue coloring.  Very cool – it’s a paint pen, you can see through it and it didn’t smear!

And this turned into a simple Valentines Day Card (you know I had to end with a card, right?)

I also colored the Share A Sale Look Book so I could post it on instagram with the same markers… It did great!

Products:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Jennifer

~Disclosure~

Some of the links on this website are affiliate links, which means that Crafty Card Gallery may earn a commission if you click on the link or make a purchase using the link. When you make a purchase, the price you pay will be the same whether you use the affiliate link or go directly to the vendor’s website using a non-affiliate link.

Shareasale.com Affiliate Disclosure: Crafty Card Gallery is a participant in the Shareasale.com Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Shareasale.com partner companies.

All opinions are my own

 


Coloring Book Review

Hi,
If you’ve been following my blog you know I had a great opportunity in January to meet some great representatives from some of my favorite crafting companies and got a chance to enter into a contest for crafting (I still owe you a full blog post!)

So I had the opportunity recently to try out Leisure Arts newest coloring book, Art of Coloring Kaleidoscopes.  I was lucky enough to get the book for free in exchange for a review – but my opinions are my own.

Here are a few great things about the book:
1) It’s sturdy enough that I was able to put it in a backpack and it didn’t get wrinkled, and it’s 8 1/2* 11 so it’s not too big (and it’s not too heavy)
2) Pages are only printed on one side.  I hate coloring books that are printed on both sides because then my ink always seems to bleed through!  And also I can’t decide which picture I like/want to color.
3) Pages are perforated so you can easily remove them!
4) The paper was really high quality and the pencils worked great on it.
5) Each picture only took up one page – so there was no trying to color in the binding of the book.

I recently went on short trip and had stashed the coloring book and some Crayola coloring pencils that I had gotten as a gift in my bag.  I was able to pull them out and color as we traveled.  It definitely made the time go by much quicker!  Others commented on how pretty my coloring was and that they enjoyed coloring too!  My only comment for taking a coloring book with you – make sure you take pens/pencils that won’t roll away because it’s difficult to get them when you’re in a confined space!

So this took me about 1- 11/2 hours:

And a close up:

I really liked this book – and I have probably 10 coloring books 🙂

Leisure Arts is kindly giving you 15% off your entire order for reading my review!!!

Save 15% off entire order at LeisureArts.com. Use promo code ART15.

And once you’re done with your picture, you can pull it out of the book and use it for something else!
I recently did a craft project where I took a coloring page and put it on a candle holder.  You could also frame your coloring!  If you’d like to see my project, you can find it here

Disclosure:  I received this coloring book free from Leisure Arts in exchange for writing a review on the blog.  All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.  By clicking on them and  purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission.

Thanks for visiting!