PaperFections

Deconstructed Birthday

Hi, everyone and happy Friday! This week, My Favorite Things is sponsoring the Deconstructed Sketch 160: You'll want to play along for your chance to win a $25 gift certificate to the MFT Boutique! I thought I would play along, too (not eligible to win prize!), since sketches are one of my favorite challenges! Here's the card I created: I didn't get a chance to color this cute Birdie Brown Sweet Birthday Wishes during MFT's July release last week, so I was determined to color her up and get her to work with this sketch ... so I turned the sketch on its side! She was stamped with Chocolate Brown Hybrid ink onto Copic X-Press It Blending Card (die cut with her coordinating Die-namics) and colored with these Copic Sketch markers: E00, E21, R20 (skin); Y21, Y26, E23 (hair); R81, R83, R85 (dress & cupcake liner); Y21, Y26 (frosting & balloons); E21, E23 (cupcake & shoes) W2 (ruffle shading) The Pink Lemonade panel was stamped with MFT's awesome new Confetti Background stamp in Pink Lemonade Premium Dye ink. The Pink Lemonade panel and the Primitive White one behind it were both die cut with the stitched die from Blueprints 13... Read more →

Dare To Get Dirty!

It's Dare to Get Dirty Week at Splitcoaststampers! If you're a Fan Club Member this is your chance to play along with design team members (aka Dirty Girls, which I am honored to say I am an alumni of!), past and present, in a ton of fun challenges! If you're not a Fan Club Member, this is the perfect time to become one -- you can get all the info here. We'd love to have you play with us this week! There are 33 challenges to choose from - play one or play them all. Today I'm hosting a sketch challenge ... you'll need to work with this sketch: You can find full details about the challenge, including two more samples from my fellow alumni Dirty Girls and friends, Jami Sibley and Jody Morrow, HERE. Easy peasy, right?!! Here's my sample, using one of Karen Lockhart's beautiful new floral images from her Summer 2010 release, Peonies ... my favorite flowers! The image is stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa onto Neenah Natural White cardstock and colored with these Copic markers: Coloring these flowers might seem a little overwhelming, but it's a pretty quick & easy process. I started out with a... Read more →

Red, White & Blue Sketch!

Does your heart beat red, white & blue? Do you like working with sketches? Then today's JustRite Friday Challenge was made just for you! I hope you'll join us today over at the JustRite Inspiration blog, to see the sketch I created, along with my sample card ... this beautiful sailboat colored with Copics! And you could win some JustRite stamps by participating in the challenge! Read more →

Wanna Win Some Copics?!!

A new JustRite Friday Challenge has been posted for the long U.S. holiday weekend, and the prize is a set of 12 Copic markers!! All you have to do is make a card using JustRite stamps and the sketch for my sample card shown above (by June 3) and enter it at the JustRite blog. Easy peasy fun for you over the weekend, which could win you some great Copic product! You can find the sketch and details for my card over at the JustRite Inspiration blog. Enjoy your weekend! Read more →

Happy Easter!

A very happy Easter to all of you! I've adored My Favorite Things' sweet new Pure Innocenceline of stamps for quite some time; got some a few months ago and am just now finding the time to play with them. They tug at my heart strings because they remind me of my two girls! I'm glad I found this one in my stash and had time to play with her before the weekend flew by! So I have a step-by-step of how I colored her with my Copic markers . . . This paper pattern from Basic Grey's Green At Heart 6x6 reminded me of Easter eggs, so that's why I chose it. I always choose my papers first, then I select my Copic markers to compliment the paper. Here are the steps I took to color this sweet Easter girl (you can click on any image, to view it larger): I started with a base coat of V01 on her dress, and then added some shading with V12. Next, I added more shading to her dress, using a darker V15, then went back and blended a little with the lighter V01 & V12. For her hair, I started with... Read more →

CPS & JustRite Joyful Hearts

JustRite Stampers is sponsoring the CPS #152 sketch this week and I made this sample for it. You can find the sketch over at the CPS blog and enter your card for the chance to win a brand new JustRite stamp set! My card uses JustRite's new Joyful Hearts stamp set that will be available for ordering tomorrow, February 5th from the JustRite website! It's a wonderful small oval set of these six sentiment centers and six interchangeable borders: I stamped the floral border with Memento Rich Cocoa ink and die cut it separately from the image. The center image was stamped in both Memento Rich Cocoa (flowers) and Palette Belle Rose, which really does match the papers in person -- my camera is just disagreeing today! The images were colored with these Copic Spica Glitter Pens (Pink, Lemon, Orange & Olive): The side "V" panels were machine zig-zag stitched to the card and the JustRite images popped up on foam tape. I thought this card would make a nice birthday greeting for a sweet friend whose birthday is today! Stamps: JustRite Stampers Joyful Hearts Paper: Neenah Natural White, Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck-Material Girl Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Palette Belle... Read more →

Inchie Lockhart Cupcake Love!

I have another sweet new Lockhart stamp to share with you today ...a fabulous new Cupcake With Sprinkles! Don't you love those heart sprinkles and heart cherry on top?!! This week's CPS sketch #148 was perfect for an Inchie, I thought ... or in this case, an Inchie +! That's what Inchie Arts calls their 1.50" squares and I used a white square under the cut out cupcake, with patterned paper adhered to it. The cupcake was stamped onto white cardstock and colored with these Copic markers: Star Dust Stickles were added to the heart cherry on top. The cupcake was adhered with foam tape to the paper-covered Inchie + White Square. Those cute papers are the "Try Before You Buy" digital papers from Papertrey Ink, designed by Heather Nichols ... simply because I meant to order them last month but never got around to it! They were punched out with a 1-3/8" square punch. The white background panel was embossed with Cuttlebug's Love Language folder and mounted to a standard A2-sized Raspberry Fizz card base. Have you noticed the little Blogoversary countdown over there ==> in my sidebar? Yes, just 27 days until my 3 year blogging anniversary! I'll... Read more →

WSC110: Wreath Angel

It's Weekend Sketch Challenge time again and Lori is hosting this week. You can find the challenge at her blog and enter a link to your creation there. My 7-year old dictated today's stamp selection. She was playing with some of my stamps yesterday and left this one out on my desk ... fortunately, it fit right in with the idea I had for this sketch! This is Karen Lockhart's lovely Wreath Angel. I stamped her with Versamark and heat embossed her with gold detail powder. I had heard Copic markers and embossed images didn't play too well together but I wanted to try it for myself. I'm happy to report that I had no problems whatsoever between my Copic markers and the gold embossed lines! (Maybe the issue is with darker embossing powders?) I was careful to not go over any of the embossed lines too much and kept most of my colors pretty light. I think I'll be exploring this technique a little more and share my results with you all. I used these Copic markers and Buttermilk Spica glitter pen on Angel's hair: I think the rest of the card is pretty self explanatory and I seem... Read more →

WSC109: Pursue Happiness

The Weekend Sketch Challenge is provided by Jenn this week. My sample uses one of the new stamp sets being released by Taylored Expressions today (10am CST) ... Discover Your Wings. I stamped this cool, funky butterfly once onto pink patterned paper and again on olive cardstock; then cut them out and adhered them together to get the two-toned effect. The butterfly was popped up on foam tape over a panel that I edge punched at the top. For the top horizontal element of the sketch I used pearls that were originally yellow, which I colored with my Copic YG95 marker so they would match the cardstock. I know they don't look too green in the photo above, but trust me -- they are! My camera is just disagreeing with me like a 3-year old this morning, LOL! And the pearls really are a lovely shade of warm yellow, but my camera is saying they look orangey to him today -- ugh! :D Anyway, I think you can clearly tell there is a difference in color once the pearls have been colored with the Copic marker! Wide olive grosgrain ribbon was also given a two-toned affect by adhering a strip... Read more →

WSC107: Teacher Birthday

It's Weekend Sketch Challenge time again! Our 4th grade teacher's birthday is over Thanksgiving break next week, so we're sending this card to her today. This great new Report Card 8" paper pad by October Afternoon was the perfect choice for her card, I thought! (And I see StarLitStudio has it on sale right now!). I combined the paper with sentiments from Papertrey Ink and Karen Lockhart's Itty Bitty Apple and Itty Bitty Ruler. I combined the Itty Bitty images together onto an Inchie Arts Ivory Inchie Square. I'm LOVING these new neutral Inchie Squares and the ivory matched the patterned papers perfectly! I colored the Inchie Square with the Copic markers pictured above. The strangely labeled YR31 is my custom lighter marker that I made by diluting Copic YR31Various Ink Refill (one part) with two parts Colorless Blender solution. One corner of the Inchie Square was rounded with Zutter's Round-It-All corner rounder -- this thing chomps through the Inchie Square matboard like butter! The Inchie was then layered onto a scalloped punch and popped up on foam tape. You can find more samples using this sketch today by visiting the sketch team's blogs: Beate, Cambria, Charmaine, Jenn, Lori and... Read more →

WSC106: Inchies!

This week's Weekend Sketch Challenge is perfect for Inchies, isn't it?!! I'll go ahead and wait a moment while you take a second look around to make sure you are visiting the blog you think you are! I don't know if you've ever noticed, but I don't do a lot of simple WHITE ... it just scares me, LOL! I love clean and simple white cards I see other people make but somehow I just never pull it off. But it seemed right for my idea for this card, so I went with it! I also went back to my basic white Inchie Arts Inchie Squares ... lined four of them up and stamped Karen Lockhart's Millinery Holiday Ribbon across them with Memento Bamboo Leaves ink and then colored them with these Copic markers: YG95, YG95, G24, R37 and Copic Spica Glitter Pens in Melon (on the holly leaves) and Olive (greenery). The first White Inchie Square was stamped with Karen Lockhart's new Noel sentiment in Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink and the Inchie Square outlined with the Copic R37 marker. Those pretty glittery chipboard numbers (covered with Candy Cane Stickles) were left over from my Advent Calendar project (one post... Read more →

WSC105: Snowy Good Friends

I've been a bad blogger this week and have neglected to mention some wonderful blog candy that's up for grabs over at the JustRite blog. They are introducing the November release of new stamps AND have daily blog candy prize drawings! You still have time to enter into a few of the drawings, so be sure not to miss that! On to Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #105 (sorry I'm a little bit late today!) ... I was feeling a bit in the Christmas spirit and hadn't used these darling JustRite snowpeople from the Old Fashioned Christmas Set yet, so I decided to give them some inky love! What started out as a card ended up as a holiday door hanger for my girls ...thus, all the pink I have going on here! Who can resist these sweet snowpeople put under a bubble clear party favor, filled with chunky glass glitter and made into a shaker?!! You can see a little better view of the bubble holder in this photo, along with the Copic markers I used to color: I used Craft-a-Board for a 6-inch base behind the Basic Grey paper, to give some sturdiness, and cut a hole in it... Read more →

WSC104-Happy Halloween

It's Friday and that means Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge time again! You can find the sketch and all the details over at Beate's blog today. I couldn't let the month get away without one fun Halloween card, so I chose this sweet little Lockhart Stamp Company Witch and combined her with Basic Grey's Eerie paper. My card measures 6" x 3". Little Witchy was colored with these Copic markers and Black & Orange Spica glitter pens: The long right edge of the vertical patterned paper strip was punched with Fiskars Apron Lace punch -- love that thing! Witchy was framed with Natural White cardstock die cut with Classic Scalloped Square Nestabilities and popped up on foam tape. Green glittery ribbon ties it all up. We hope you'll play along with the sketch challenge this weekend between trick-or-treating and turning back your clocks for that extra hour of sleep this weekend (I'm SO looking forward to that)!! You can find more samples of this sketch by visiting these fabulous ladies: Beate, Cambria, Charmaine, Jenn, Laurie, Lori and Mary Jo. The paper and stamp to make this card are both on sale through October 31st at Ellen Hutson LLC -- 35% off!!... Read more →

WSC102: Snowman

Here's my sample for Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #102. I took a few liberties with the sketch, replacing the mat layer behind the focal image with the aqua snowflakes! I really wanted as much of that wave of pink snowflake paper to show as possible. It was machine zig-zag stitched onto the background layer. I used Karen Lockhart'sSnowman With Bird -- isn't he adorable?!! Although with all this pink going on, I'm not sure he's still a snowMAN, LOL! Oh well -- in my house with 3 females in it, that's definitely okay! S/He was stamped onto white cardstock and colored with these Copic markers: He's popped up on foam tape and the snowflake die cuts are accented with Dew Drops. Pretty quick and simple this morning! As you can see, I kept my card in the standard A2 size, while the sketch called for a longer card ... more liberties taken! I think that's the fun with sketches, though -- artist interpretation {wink}! I hope you'll check out the sketch samples these talented ladies have for you today -- it always makes for a fun Friday morning with my stamping buddies! Beate, Cambria, Charmaine, Jenn, Laurie and Lori. I'll... Read more →

WSC101: Peace Dove

Sorry I'm running a little late with my WSC101 sample, but here it is -- turned sideways to fit this beautiful dove image from Taylored Expressions' recent holiday release, Christmas Blessings! That's one thing I love about working with sketches ... if it doesn't work for an image you'd like to use, just try flipping the sketch different ways! I used some beautifully embossed paper from Taylor's Christmas Mint Collection, along with Prism Suede Brown Dark cardstock to frame the dove stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa onto TE Choice Buttercream cardstock. Berries on the branch were made with Red Spica Glitter Pen and machine stitched around the image. Gathered & stitched red ribbon was added for the (now!) vertical element in the sketch. I inked this pretty sentiment from the Christmas Blessings set (love the font!) individually with red & brown inks and then circle punched and matted it with Prism Blush Red Dark cardstock. Quick, simple but elegant! We hope you'll join us this weekend and try out this sketch. You can find it, along with Beate's sample on her blog. These ladies also have sketch samples for you today: Cami, Charmaine, Jenn, Laurie and Mary Jo. I hope... Read more →