Really neat DYI recipes for Pastels, and some cards

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend, the weather here is so wonderful, warm, not hot, and it cools down in the evening. San Jose really is one of the greatest places to live, lots to do around here, wonderful parks, close to the ocean, it is just one fantastic place to live.

So, here are some really neat sites and some card sharing. I found one link a while ago, and then found some more links tonight. And no, haven't tried the recipe yet, but want to, badly. I might try to order the binders and some pigments tomorrow, and also try to use my pearl ex as a pigment powder.

From what I can gather this could be a rather fun experiment with the kids, and it will end up saving you some money as well (and maybe you could make some of these for your stamping friends for Christmas, a custom made set of pastels, how cool is that ; )

Here is the first one I found, and then the others followed:

• Daniel Smith: Wow! This is the BEST if you want to make pastels (I am going to use some containers I had for eyelets to store the soft pastels), lots of information, and keep reading the link to about the middle for a secret recipe.

• How to make Pastels: Not sure that I would try the oatmeal recipe, but the other one is a must try.
  

• The Colorist: This is a two part post, the first one is the one I just linked to, the second part is here.
  

• Real Color Wheel: This one has good information, but the process seems a bit more complicated then I would like to try, but thought I should throw it in for you to see.

Here are some more links for the materials you need to make the pastels:

• Pigments: Dick Blicks has some great pigments, and then you can also try throwing in some mica powders as well. I am going to try the Createx Pure Pigments (which are recommended on one of the above posts). Also, here are some Mica powders, and some other pure powder pigments (make sure to check all of the various colors here, look on the link to the left), and more pigments (reasonably priced)

• Talc: This was also in one of the above links, but in case you missed the link, here it is : )

• Calcium Carbonate: Again, in the link above and here for you to find if you missed it.

Let me know if you try this and what your results are. Ok, now on to some cards.

Yes, I actually make cards, and this first one is one for this weeks SBS18 challenge! The theme is how does your garden grow:



And here is one I did for a SCS challenge that I have to post (it was a sketch challenge a few weeks ago).



And here are a few I did last week.





This is a card I made from a tutorial that Michael Strong did (I posted it a bit ago, can repost if you can't find it):

The envelope, really, really cool and easy:



And the card I put inside:



And just some other cards, the kimono is chalked the background is inked.



And yes, I did finally make a card out of the double chalk method sample:



Whewwwwwwwwwww...that was a LONG post, hope you enjoyed!

Have a relaxing rest of the evening and an amazing Tuesday.