PaperFections

You're The Cherry On Top!

I needed a little watercolor therapy tonight, so I thought I'd make a Valentine for my youngest triple-scoop chocolate lover:

Doesn't it look good enough to eat?!! (I think I might be just a little bit carb and sweet deprived!).  I stamped Karen Lockhart's Doodles Ice Cream Cone with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Copic X-Press It Blending Card. I like using this cardstock to watercolor with my Copics because it's so smooth and the colors push around and blend easily.

Next, I filled a water brush with Copic Blending Solution.  You'll see in a few photos below that I used a plastic palette with wells in it to squeeze some Copic Various Ink Refills in and then used the water brush to pick up the color and watercolor with.  I started by giving the ice cream a base coat of E23-Hazelnut:

I left a few highlight spots white. Then I used a little bit darker E25-Caribe Cocoa to shade the bottoms of the scoops:

Next, I used E30-Bisque to cover the cone (here's that palette I'm using to hold the Various Ink Refills):

Then I used my E31 marker to trace over the cone lines. The cherry was colored with R83-Rose Mint:

I used BG000-Pale Aqua for the background. You can probably see how wet the edges of the aqua background are below -- You can use just the Blender Solution in the waterbrush to blend and fade out the edges of the color right into oblivion!

Here's the finished piece, die cut with My Favorite Things' Dainty Doily Duo die and popped up on Copic Foam Tape:

Pretty Basic Grey True Love patterned paper "girlifies" it nicely for my 10-year old, I think -- especially since she IS my cherry on top!  She already snuck a peek just as I finished and asked if she could have this for dessert . . . that's all the approval I need!  :)

Thanks so much for visiting . . . I hope you have a fabulous weekend ahead!  I'll be back Sunday evening with a fun StampTV Challenge for you!

~ Sharon

{Supplies}

HRR Birthday Celebration Blog Hop!

Today is a very special birthday for a dear friend -- Julie Ebersole!  

If the title of my post has you stumped and you don't happen to know Julie, she is affectionately known as Her Royal Rubberness (for our mutual love of rubber stamping) -- hence, HRR!  I've known Julie since before she recruited me for the Dirty Dozen Design Team over at Splitcoaststampers.com in November 2005 and we happen to share the same birth year, ahem . . . which won't be mentioned here! ;-)

Our mutual friend and cohart in crime, Ellen Hutson, organized this little surprise cyber birthday party, so here is a birthday bouquet of poppies for you, Jules:

As an ode to the Queen of CAS -- this is about as clean and simple as I get! Julie, I hope you have the most fabulous, best year of your life yet! Big birthday hugs to the PNW from Texas!

JustRite Papercraft's Poppies were colored with Copic markers. You'll be able to find a full stepped-out tutorial for coloring these poppies over on the Copic blog next Tuesday, February 5. (Update: The tutorial is now posted HERE.)

True story -- When Julie and I first met in person in the fall of 2006, we were gathering with some mutual stamping friends for an event and I brought my Copic markers because everyone wanted to learn how to color with them, since they were so new to the papercrafting community. But I hadn't been very successful in working with them yet (back then there weren't any video tutorials about them yet, or Copic Certification classes) and I tried to show everyone how to color with them but Julie had to jump in and rescue me! Thanks, Julie -- I think I finally got the hang of them . . .    

Your next stop on Julie's birthday bash blog hop is Shari Carroll. If you get lost along the way or experience a broken link, you can find the full list of blog hoppers over at Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom.

Thanks for stopping by!  ~ Sharon

{Supplies}

February Calendar

It's almost that time . . . can you believe the first month of the year is almost over?  February is just around the corner, so I got a head start on my February calendar!

I hope you'll join me over in Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom, where I'll show you exactly how I created my calendar.  Happy weekend!

~ Sharon

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Life Is . . .

. . . a great balancing act -- isn't that the truth?!!  Today was the 9th straight day I've been working of a 12-day stretch, so I decided I needed a little break tonight. Some coloring therapy was exactly what I needed and this Balanced Diva by Debbie Corbari for Gina K Designs stamp set came to the resuce!

I stamped her with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Ivory Gina K Designs Heavy Base Weight cardstock and colored her with these Copic markers:

Skin: E00, E11. Lips: R20. Hair: YR31, E31, E23. Tank: BG53, BG72. Pants: T6, T8. Floor: T0, T1.

The {Life is...} sentiment was inked with Teal Zeal and Tuxedo Black Memento markers.  I recycled the little frame from another project (originally a dollar find from the craft store) -- it used to be white but I wanted it to add a serene feeling to my project, so I airbrushed it with my favorite Copic BG53-Ice Mint:

Then I finished it by highlighting the molding with dark teal blue metallic rub-on paste.

With this framed art sitting on my work desk, I think I just might be able to make it another 3 days this week!

~ Sharon

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