Danielle Calabro

I am calling this my successful fail, this was my first attempt at using a couple of new tools. It was a fail because it did not turn out how I would have liked but successful because I learned some valuable lessons in the process. Lesson #1: The Pen holder for the Silhouette Cameo: I took a chance on this tool, I was not sure if it would work in the new machine, all the videos on you tube had shown the older machine. After using the Sketch pens made for the machine, which I am not a big fan of because my last card I made the ink skipped. I wanted to make sure the ink would not skip again so I figured I would test out a couple of pens in the holder. What I found was the shape of the pen makes a difference. I love my micron pens but I find they did not fit as well as the Copic multiliners, the Copic pens are fatter near the tip so it was a snug fit and did not slip. The Micron are thinner near the tip and it slipped from the holder. Here is the test sheet I did with a few different ...

I know as a woman that tough times are just that, tough times. You can either let them take over you or you can fight through them. Me, I would rather fight through them. We have a young lady at another branch (my 9-5 job), that has fallen on some tough times and I know that sometimes its nice to see that people do still care. I do not know her personally but I know the feeling, I am sure all of us do. I thought it would be nice to give her a card but not just any card, one that was just for her, apparently she loves high heels. This also pushed me to figure out how the hell do I get my artwork to cut out on cards. This is what I started with, sketched out and traced with pen: Easy enough, so here is the tough part, how do I get it to cut so it doesn't just leave an outline of a high heel in the middle of the card? I started first thing in the morning but with life I had to stop a couple of times, take the kids to the park, get lunch and do some grocery shopping. Once we g...

I know I have been away for about a week, I have been working on a few things. I got over my little grumble about the business license and I am moving forward. As I said in one of my last post I am making my christmas cards this year, so I have started my first one. The background is done, all I need to work on is the lettering. I have not decided if I will do the lettering myself or have a hi-res scan of the painting and just use a font. I think I will do a couple of more then go from there. The background was done in watercolor, I used a watercolor mask for the stars. While the background was still wet I sprinkled table salt on it and got a nice speckled effect. The tress were painted with gouache, I wanted a nice opaque cover, along with a gold paint pen, this added a nice little shine to it. Of course I doubt I will be able to get that effect on a printed card and if I can I may end up paying more, something to think about, I then tangled the trees.