PaperFections

Essentials by Ellen Spring 2015 Release & Giveaway!

Hello, and welcome to the Spring 2015 Essentials by Ellen Release Hop ... I’ll be showcasing some of the new stamp sets and dies In my post today! I also get to give away this gorgeous new floral stamp set, called Bohemian Garden to a lucky someone! Please leave a comment here on this blog post to enter my giveaway. The fun begins in the CLASSroom, where there is also a Grand Giveaway! To enter, be sure to leave a comment there, and at every stop along the hop by May 5th! Winners will be announced May 8th. Here's an 8-inch scrapbook page of my youngest daughter that I made with the Bohemian Garden stamp set, along with the very cool Be-YOU-Tiful die, Amazing Women stamp set and Mondo Magnolia stamp set and coordinating Mondo Magnolia die (all bold products are linked below in the supply section): (Click on any photo for a larger view) 1. I started this page by gold and silver heat embossing the pretty Bohemian Garden flowers onto an 8-inch piece of Neenah Desert Storm cardstock. These stamps stamp so VERY nicely and the outline size is perfect for either embossing or coloring and the variety... Read more →

A Beautiful Day!

Hello, everyone ... it is, indeed, a beautiful day here in south Texas! I hope it is in your part of the country, as well. Another reason it is a beautiful day ... this is my first post as a new design team member for Pink Ink Stamp Company! If you take a look around their website, you may notice it looks a little familiar. That's because the owner of Pink Ink, Peggy Jo Ackley -- a very accomplished illustrator -- purchased the Lockhart Stamp Company (for whom I designed for about 5-1/2 years) almost two years ago, and her style is very similar to Karen Lockhart's. Peggy produces and distributes her own new Pink Ink stamp line, as well as the entire current line of Lockhart Stamp Co stamps! So I was thrilled when Peggy asked me to join her new design team! My card uses a brand new beautiful Spring/Summer Release stamp, Summer Planter (all bold products are linked below in the supply section): I stamped the flower planter onto Copic X-Press It Blending Card with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored it with Copic Sketch Markers. Here's a quick step-out of the markers I used to color... Read more →

Baby Congrats

Happy Saturday ... I hope you are enjoying your weekend! Today over in Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom I have this sweet baby shaker card to share, along with full instructions on how to create a shaker card ... I hope you'll join me there! Read more →

Feeling Blue?

Maybe this cute guy will help! I made this sweet card for the current Mix It Up Challenge going on over in Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom. Yes, that's right ... If you haven't heard yet, Ellen is sponsoring two new challenges per month and just by participating you have the chance to win a $50 gift certificate to the store! The Mix It Up Challenge is a challenge where Ellen invites one manufacturer (product carried in the store) to contribute a design that combines Essentials by Ellen stamps/dies with their product to inspire our readers! All you have to do is create a project with the manufacturer's product combined with Essentials by Ellen stamps/dies and link it up on the challenge blog post ... it's that easy! This month's Mix It Up challenge manufacturer is Lawn Fawn. I used their awesome Milo's ABCs alphabet stamps to create a custom sentiment for Julie's Essentials by Ellen Wish Big hippo. (All bold products are linked below in the supply section). The watery background for the hippo was created with my Copic Watercolor Background technique (tutorial can be found here). Basically, Copic Various Ink Refills BG01, BG53, B23 (shown below) were scribbled and... Read more →

A Fond Farewell

It is with sadness and a great deal of admiration that the Copic team bids farewell to our long-time friend and Copic team member, Sherrie Siemens. Sherrie has made the very difficult choice to step down from the team, as she begins an exciting new adventure going back to school to pursue a brand new career. (Above photo – Copic training event in Chicago 2011 – Sherrie, MandiLee Klinger, Lori Craig and myself) I've had the honor to serve on a few design teams with Sherrie over the years and have always admired her gorgeous artwork, mad coloring skills, integrity and kindness. We will ALL sorely miss you, Sherrie ... Best of luck in the next phase of your life! The beautiful portrait of Sherrie above reminded me of this sweet image: Digital image is A Special Flower from A Day For Daisies. Other supplies are linked below. Background was airbrushed with Y21. Shadows behind girl were dotted with C1, C2, and Y21. Our Copic team has all posted for Sherrie today. Some of them will have pictures, and some may have projects. We'd love for you to stop by Sherrie's blog (last link on the list below) and share... Read more →

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Friends! This is getting up a little later than I wanted today, after a little detour trip to the ER with my husband last night (just as I was finishing the coloring of this image)! He is doing fine now, but I'm sure you can imagine what a Saturday night on a holiday weekend was like at the hospital ... hurry up and wait for 5 hours! :) This adorable Easter Egg image is a digi stamp from A Day For Daisies. Every now and then I love the instant gratification of a new image to color ... even at midnight! (All bold products are linked below in the supply section). After printing the image onto Copic X-Press It Blending Card, I colored it with these Copic Sketch Markers: I tried out a little different technique to color the ground and sky ... and that is stippling or dotting the tip of your brush marker to fill in those areas. For the blue sky background, I started with a quick and light solid coloring of my lightest BG0000, then went back with my two darker BG000 and BG01 markers and did the stippling. The ground was dotted with... Read more →

Wish Big!

Do you have a BIG birthday coming up soon? Maybe this card using the Wish Big Essentials by Ellen stamp set will help! Details are over in Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom today ... I hope you'll join me there! Happy Good Friday! Read more →