Walking in a Winter Wonderland...Not!

Brrrrr! Good morning!

I awoke this morning to a bone-chilling two...that's 2...degrees! As my friends from the North Pole might say, "It's not a fit day out for man nor beast!" I can't remember the last time we were so cold. I thank God that our furnace is still working. I do wish it could keep up a little better though. I had to give the munchkin (a.k.a. Winnie the mini-dachshund) a blankie, along with darling husband, of course. ;-)

While we're only expected to reach 29 degrees today, I'm looking forward to the coming week, which will attain upper 60s by Friday! Hoorah!

So, in keeping with the current situation, I'm posting a card I made a while back with a digital image from Angel's Landing. The original black-and-white illustration is the work of Judi Maddigan, and I produced the color and finished product. This is one of my all-time favorite cards!

I just love these sweet little penguin babies! They make my heart laugh! I colored them with Copic Sketch markers, and then fussy cut around the images and popped them up with some Stampin' Up dimensionals. I had some beautiful winter-themed designer paper for the background. I hope they make you laugh, too.

Well, my office is in a cold part of the house, and I'm about to seek out my own blanket. Thanks for visiting, and please come back again soon. 

You can view some additional cards in my Etsy shop (link above right), if you'd like to pay a visit. I have additional sets ready (including Valentine's Day) and will be posting them there soon.

Stay safe and warm!

Winter has arrived?

Hello everyone.

It's hard to believe that wintertime officially arrived today. Normally it's in the 20s to 40s this time of year, but today?  It was mid 70s!  Really.  I went out in just a light sweatshirt and thought I'd roast before I could get home and change it!

It may seem funny to comment on an unusually warm winter, but...that much warmth this time of year generally spells storms.  Tomorrow is expected to be no different. We're supposed to have thunderstorms and wind. Hold onto your lawn ornaments!

Well, now for a bit cheerier subject - my card for the day. This cutie is Candy Cane Anneke, the December stamp of the month by From the Heart stamps. Check out other gallery entries here.  (No one can say I'm not loyal, as I feature of lot of their digital images.) I have lots of other brands, but find these images incredibly fun to color with my Copic Sketch markers.

My Copic color choices include:
Hat and candy cane: R22, 24, 29, 39, 59, 89
Skin: E00, E11, BV00
Cheeks: R20
Eyes: B00
Hair: E50, E31, E44
Dress: B63, B66, B69
Boots: E42, E55, E35
Outline and white shading: W1

Here's a closer look:

This card features navy blue cardstock, white X-Press It blending card for the image, Spellbinders Nestabilities Lacey Ovales die cut, a royal blue oval taped behind the die cut for depth, and Liquid Pearls accents on Echo Park 6x6 "Winter Wishes" paper pad.

And on the inside, I have more Echo Park paper, along with my greeting from Hero Arts Stamp and Cut Season's Greetings set.

 

 

I had a wonderful time creating this little darling. In fact, I really couldn't help myself as I made several cards from this image with various color combinations and designs.

 

 



 

 

The first and third images directly above also feature embossed snowflakes in white opaque, as well as some gold and diamond colored Stickles in the center of the designer paper snowflakes. Hope you enjoy my fun cards.

 

Now, to all you and yours, may you have a safe, happy, healthy Christmas. May God bless us each and every one, as we celebrate once again the newborn King!

Triple Treat Border Punch

Hi. It's been very rainy here lately, which is really great for growing things of all sorts, but it does tend to dampen the spirit a bit.  Still, instead of letting the blah weather get me down, I decided to turn it to practical use!

Today I turned my Fiskars Sunburst border punch into a triple treat by using it three times to achieve a new look for a card. This whimsical image, titled "Drenched" is once again by From the Heart Stamps. I can't seem to get away from these adorable digitals!

I printed my image on Neenah Classic Crest solar white cardstock and colored it with Copic Sketch markers in primarily purple and yellow shades. I die cut it using Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Eight. And although it's difficult to tell from this photo, I used Glossy Accents on the raindrops and water puddle for some shine.

On the inside, I repeated the Fiskars sunburst borders twice. I tried lining up the punches exactly, but decided the result was too formal for this image. This offset punch pattern reminded me a bit of a running stream of water between the yellow and white papers.

And that's it! I hope you like the look of my triple treat punch. Thanks for visiting, and please join me again soon. 

Using Masks to Test Color Options

Hi. Today's tip is really simple - but ultimately very useful.

Last Friday, I introduced you to Humble Anneke. As I worked to complete my project with Anneke, I had to make some decisions. One of them was about color.

I started with Anneke's hair and skin, and then progressed to her clothing. I knew I wanted a blue-violet "apron," as well as a contrasting yellow color. But when it came time to decide whether to use white for the main color and add yellow polka dots, or use a yellow base with white dots, or some other combination, I just couldn't decide.

Now, after you've spent a tremendous amount of time coloring, you don't want to mess something up and be unsatisfied with it! After a few minutes, the perfect solution came to me: test out the combinations before adding them to the actual image!

So, I pulled out my brand new, unopened Copic bleedproof marker pad and used a multiliner pen to trace the appropriate part of the image. I repeated this a couple of times. I colored the images with different color combinations and then fussy-cut them out. I placed the pieces on the image one at a time and chose my favorite one. Then I colored the actual image with my choice.

Testing color options using masks



Final color choice after testing

If you don't happen to have a Copic bleedproof marker pad, don't worry. You could just as easily use vellum to trace or stamp your image, then color and cut it out. Take care though; vellum may have some bleed through, and if you're tracing on your original image, you could ruin it.

My final color choice was slightly different from both masks. I ended up using a very pale yellow (Yellow Fluorite, Y0000) base, with darker yellow polka dots, sash, and bows (Y23, Y32, and Y35).

I also attempted to draw in a cast shadow to ground Anneke on the card stock, but had a bit of a mishap there. So, I ended up fussy-cutting her, too. As you might imagine, cutting out Anneke changed my idea for the card, so please be patient with me as I move toward a completed card. I'll post it just as soon as it's complete.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you find today's tip helpful, and I hope you'll join me again soon to wrap up this project. Peace!

Best Laid Plans

Hi.  Today I had the most marvelous plans to dazzle you with my wonderful card making skills and show you a beautiful finished card for a birthday this week. But a funny thing happened on the way to my goal...well, a couple of things actually! I chose to tell you about them because it's a definite lesson for me...and might save you some future troubles, too.

Here's what happened:
I printed out a digital stamp that I recently downloaded from From the Heart Stamps, one of my favorite go-to spots for digital images. I was just getting underway with coloring when I noticed that my C1 Copic marker (cool gray no. 1) wasn't working too well. On closer inspection, it appeared that the marker was running out of ink. There are three ways I know of to tell when ink is getting low. First, the pen fails to glide across the paper and starts to get "squeaky" as the color goes on. Second, the color gets splotchy; it's normally very even. (The gray watering can in the second picture below shows a definite unevenness of color near the right side.) And finally, a quick inspection of the brush tip will show a variation in color. The tip starts to turn a whitish hue of the ink color.  If you look closely, you'll see a slight line running up the ink tip in the picture below. There's also a tiny white tip at the end of the brush.

 

 

Well, needless to say, this was a most unwelcome occurrence! I immediately sprang into action and ordered a bottle of ink refill for this marker.  Then, as I opened some other markers, I found the same thing. There's only one explanation I can give. I cleaned all my markers these last couple of days in preparation for making blog videos. I used cotton swabs with alcohol, which is perfectly acceptable. What I fear has happened, however, is that I have gotten rubbing alcohol into the tips of my markers. I don't know precisely what the long-term effect will be, but for now they're definitely not working very well. I'm praying this will right itself in the next couple of days.

 

The second result of this situation is the reaction my markers had on my image. Under normal circumstances, a printed digital image works very well with Copic markers. Today, however, I am getting a definite "bleed out" of printer ink. You can probably see a slight pinkish tint around the black stamp lines in this frog image, particularly around his mouth and eyes. Unfortunately, I was using nothing but greens in my frog.

 

 

So, what to do?  Well, time will tell. If any of you have experienced this and have a good solution, I'm certainly interested to hear from you. I'll also be looking for other posts on YouTube about this particular dilemma.

 

Right now, though, I need to pull out a different type of marker or colored pencil and see whether I can make this frog hop on into the birthday girl's heart!  Wish me luck.

 

Thanks for visiting and please stay tuned for an update on "the Copic dilemma."