Pan Pastel Week 5 - Animals

Hello Everyone,

Hope you are having a nice relaxing sunday? Its a busy one here... we have a Greyhound walk with the pack (a lurcher, a greyhound and 2 whippets) this morning and this afternoon Bella and I are off to talk about our experience at a local Homebirth meeting.

This week the theme over at the Pan Pastel Challenge is Animals - and tell you it feels like a zoo here sometimes with 3 kids and 4 dogs!! 

I decided to do a Canvas based on an Idea I saw on the talented Helen Anderson's facebook page (I couldnt find your blog Helen! please message me so I can add it and credit you for my inspiration!!) ... she has been making new baby canvasses for a while so I contacted her and asked if she minded if I used hers as inspiration and she said i could so here we are hehe

I started by gessoing the canvas then adding a mix of different coloured pastels direct to the canvas to make the sea and the sky. I also added a bright red around the edge of the canvas (cos i liked how it looked on my star one!)

I then covered that in the Maimeri matt medium to seal it. I went over then with a couple of masks to create a bit of texture.. again using a darker shade of pastel, and a little white in the sky. I also made a sun in the corner with bright yellow pastel

I printed my Noahs Ark Digi from Whimsy stamps onto the most amazing super smooth card (you wait till this is available it will fly out its that fab!!) and coloured it with Graph-it markers. They are a great new alcolhol marker which are due to be launched next month and I love them... but I will be telling you more about that soon!!

I used a range of stamps to create texture in the background - they were just varous text etc stamped in smokey grey versafine.. I wasnt bothered if they didnt stamp properly as it was just for texture. I also used a black ink pad and a dylusions border stamp to stamp around the edge, and a blue ink across the horizon line.  Whilst the stamps were out I stamped the name onto some card.

I attached the digi and the name with more matt medium. Then using the maimeri gesso i used bottle caps, masks, a scraper (yep the boots card again!) and my fingers to add a bit more texture.

Finally when I was happy with all that I covered the top part with Matt medium. I used gloss medium on a brush over the ark and I used a texture sponge to dab the gloss gel onto the sea section to give the impression of water. I am really happy with the effect that gave!

Finally a bit of doodling with my black graph-it Marker and I was done :D


The Mediums, texture sponge, Canvas and pan pastels are available from Your Creativity Store
The Graph-it Markers and super smooth card will be exclusively available soon so stay tuned!!
The masks and stamps available from Crafty Boots
Noahs Art Digi stamp available from Whimsy Stamps



I hope you like my design and don't forget to head on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team have been up to and join in !!

Blogger ate my project ... and other ramblings

Hey everyone

Its been one hell of a couple of weeks here at Pinkhair HQ. I had the very sad news that a friend of mine lost his battle with a heart problem whilst waiting for a transplant. He was my age and leaves behind two very young children. Then the news this week that my aunt had also passed in her sleep. On top of that we have the normal stresses and strains and pains that being disabled and having a small family create and its been quite the nightmare.

On top of that Blogger ate my post with my Pan Pastel Nature challenge on it.

I will readd the pics here for you...

•  Uses Pan Pastels from Your creativity Store
• Stamps by Inkylicious

This weeks challenge at Pan Pastels Challenge Blog was called Stars. Unfortunately I wasnt able to upload it to the challenge blog in time (see above nightmare!) but I have added it here instead. I think I will hang it in my little boys room. I used a variety of Maimeri mediums, pastels and masks... my favourite part is the red starry sides.

• Gesso, Texture Paste and Iridescent medium from Your creativity Store
• Pan Pastels from Your Creativity Store
• Various masks from Crafty Boots

I'll be back on Sunday with this weeks pan pastel challenge and hopefully can share some exciting news but until then take care, join the donor register and hug your kids extra tight... life ends far too soon!! xxxx

Pan Pastel Challenge - New Year new Technique

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my blog I really do love reading them so please keep them coming :D

This week the theme on Pan Pastels challenge blog is New Year New Technique... I am very interested at the moment in making different textures with my pastels.. my journal page from the last channel mixed it with gesso so this week i wondered if they would be washable if I mixed them with texture medium!!

So I used a fabric stamp pad (versacraft i believe) and the "under the sea Mae" stamps set and had a go. It was super simple. I literally just used the end of my palette knife to lightly scrape the top of my pan pastel to drops some pigment into my mixing pallete, then adding a bit of textile medium and mixed them till a solid colour.. then used a small paintbrush to colour. I added a darker colour to add some shading too. 

I am really pleased with how this came out! I have washed it and it stayed in place but I wouldn't recommend hoping it will last on everyday clothes that get worn time and time again but how fab would it be for personalized birthday or photo shoot items??

Dont forget to pop over to The pan pastel challenge blog to see what the rest of the design team made and to link us your entry!


Pastels available from  Your Creativity Store
Stamps from Crafty Boots
Textile medium from art store

naughty blogger is eating my pan pastel dt post. .. please check back later to see how I made my painted sleepsuit

Pan Pastel DT - Anything goes

Hello lovelies..

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are full of optimism for the year ahead?

My first blog post this year cos with great nervousness from me as it is my first project as part of the pan pastel design team. I hope you all like it... If I forget to explain something and you want to know please give me a shout!!!

I chose to make a journal page for the anything goes challenge.

I started by gessoing my page with the maimeri gesso. Once that was dry I randomly applied a base wash of colour using magenta and turquoise pastels. I then sealed that layer with fixative spray so that the colours wouldn't blend with then next layer... Then using crafters workshop templates I added random patterns using magenta shade and ultramarine blue.  I sealed this layer by covering the page with maimeri matt medium.

I used a craft scraper (OK OK it was an old boots card!) To scrape gesso thru the harlequin template randomly to create interest and lift the page. I also used bottle caps in the gesso to make the rings. I also mixed some magenta pan pastel with the gesso and scraped that  thru the honeycomb template.

I used random stamps and black stazon to add some images. I also stamped wings in versamark . I then added ultramarine pastel over the versa mark to highlight the wings, and over stamped in black.

I stamped my phrase on white card and coloured with turquoise pastel. I adhered this to the page with matt medium.

Finally using a black posca pen I added random doodling and used violet extra dark pan pastel to edge the page and highlight the word blocks.

Pastels and mediums available from  your creativity store.

I hope you like my page.. Please pop over to the challenge blog and join in!!!!