Creative "cheating"

I saw this little stamp online ( at Charmed Cards & Crafts) and thought, well, maybe I could draw that....
If you click on the photo, it should come up larger.
The circles are hand drawn so a wee bit wobbly. That almost-oval was done by drawing round my computer mouse!!!! I coloured them in with my trusty old watercolour pencils and water-brush. The waterfast black pen was one for writing onto DVDs and CDs :)

OK on to my second "creative cheat"....

Look at this amazing card!!! It was made by Kristin.She achieved the brilliant sky by using a brayer, which is a special little roller that you can ink up from your inkpads or refill bottles.

I loved this image but don't have a brayer. I did experiment with a few substitutes but in the end went back to the watercolour pencils :)

Here are my results. Nothing like as great as Kristin's, and I think a brayer will remain on my wishlist. But I did really enjoy doing them. They took about 10 minutes each. The trees are drawn with that DVD pen again!I put these here because I wanted to say that if you see something you like, have a go at something similar- even if you don't have the tools.

I've discovered these last few months that building up a supply of craft tools is potentially very expensive- so you have to look for sales in the online stores and hunt for bargains on Ebay. The search is part of the fun. And finding other ways to do things is, too.

Thanks for the inspiration, Kristin!