WOOOO HOOOOO!! Party in the craft room today!! I *finally* found a method of coloring stamped images that did not require a thousand dollar investment!!

All you need: Standard pencil crayons, baby oil & blender tips (called pen or marker nibs)

Seriously. That’s it.

Thanks to Madame Wong‘s post today on how to blend colored pencils in a similar manner to Copic coloring or alcohol markers in general, I was able to create this card:

Penny Black stamp colored & blended with Crayola Pencil Crayons

My foray into coloring with my new Prismacolor markers wasn’t NEARLY as successful – the set of 48 I got did not have enough shades of one color to allow for a proper gradient blend.

Here is the video that madame Wong posted showing a tutorial on how to blend your pencil crayon coloring:

Here are a few additional tips to coloring & blending your pencil crayon coloring:

• If you want to show texture (like fur in my example), then be careful not to over blend
• Use only a pinpoint amount of baby oil – the more oil you have on your tip, the more it will blend your work. go over your colors a few times instead. Better to have not enough, than too much blending. And yes, you can blend too much. Too much blending = smeary, smudgy looking work
• The better quality pencils you use, the richer your colored image will turn out.
• I used Whisper White card stock from Stampin Up, but plain old card stock from Michaels also worked when I tested it.

Materials for my card:

STAMP: Penny Black (clear mount) “It’s Your Day”INK: Black Memento Archival Ink
COLOR: Crayola Pencil Crayons
BLENDING: Household standard type Baby Oil & Marker / Pen Nib refills (see video for other types of blenders you can use)
PAPER: Recollections (I don’t know the colors)
EMBOSSING FOLDER: Cuttlebug Spots & Dots

**EDIT UPDATE**

After some requests, here is a picture of the blenders that I use. I am Canadian & got these at my local Michaels. (I looked for the tool that was used in the video but I couldn’t find it.)