Long time no blog...

Although I've been *really* busy! :)
The boy had his fifth birthday - which required much house cleaning (how does it get that dirty??) and food prep. We had decided to do his birthday party on Saturday so that more people could attend - which was also his (FAVORITE!) cousin's birthday too.
In the midst of all this madness, I decided to make my very first easel card. Oy. That was NOT a smart choice! Don't get me wrong - it was much easier to build than I thought it would be. On the other hand, if you've never made one before, a circle easel card is not the place to start! :D
I started with this cute fairy image from Mo Manning printed on white card stock. I colored her with a mix of Copics, Spica pens & Sakura glitter pens. The dotty background technique is something I need to work on, but it looks OK here. It needs more contrast, I think.
I cut out the image and both layering panels with nesties. Both the image panel and the next (pink) layer were popped up with dimensionals. I used a gray Copic marker on the bottom purple layer so it would stand out against the base (and did the same to the base layer at the very end).
The base card (white, but not very visible here) was cut out of super thick card stock with my Curvy Cutter. This was difficult to say the least - cutting through *two* layers of thick c/s was not easy and left some pretty ragged edges. I think this particular card would've worked MUCH better with a thinner base card.
The purple layer on the bottom was stamped with the Hero Arts dots background (versamark) then stamped with the sentiment (colorbox) before adding the butterfly (MS punch). To keep the butterfly popped up I used a little glossy accents underneath the top set of wings (did that make sense?). Once dry (it stays dimensional) I added a little more to the bottom wings and the glue 'bumps' and held it down until it adhered. This lets you add as much dimension as you'd like - even in very tight spaces - and still lets you pop things up at an angle (which is tough with dimensionals).
The worst part of the experience was trying to get everything aligned on the circle! The ribbon was the most difficult, although the fold on the base piece was nearly as challenging. I'd recommend doing either a square or rectangle the first time. Actually, I believe that I *will* do one of those next time! :)
Thanks for dropping by!

Now I'm in a coloring mood....

You may have noticed (or not!) that I've added a widget to the side of my blog. It's for a place called CDAC - Crafters Digital Art Center - and it has an amazing array of goodies for the digital stamper. I'm no purist, if I love the image I'll use it, but digital stamps are something of a different proposition. :) Coloring them can be difficult! But, if you go poke around on CDAC you'll find lots of information about, well, just about everything digi related.
I find using colored pencils (and sometimes markers) to be the easiest way to color these printed 'stamps'. Now, I'm no expert! I've spent a lot of time studying the different posts that Marianne Walker has done on coloring. My coloring has improved significantly since I found her - and she certainly inspires me to try new things.
In the spirit of finding CDAC and getting caught up in digis, I used a lovely freebie from Mo Manning for this card. Isn't it the sweetest image? :)
I printed the image on regular white card stock. After it dried overnight (sometimes I hit it with a heat gun - otherwise it tends to smear when using OMS) I started coloring with pencils. Mostly I used my favorite Lyra Polycolor pencils, but I did have to fill in some of the colors with Prismacolors also. I did a lot of blending with OMS (odorless mineral spirits) and a lot of adding more layers of pencil in order to get the depth of color I wanted. After I finished coloring the image, I went around the outside using a warm gray Copic marker (see, Marianne ROCKS!) to give some dimension. I then cut and embossed with a circle nestie.
The base card is one of the precut letterpress papers you see all over (for use with the Epic Six & letterpress kit). Let me tell you - it takes embossing from a folder like a dream! :) This card was embossed using the Cuttlebug folder (twigs?) and then lightly brushed with Antique Linen to show the embossing. Since that wasn't enough for me - I also went over the raised portions with a clear Spica pen too - even though you can't see it! You also can't see the tiny bit of Smooch in the main image - the hearts and some streaks in the straw - but the lighting was all wrong today (storm a comin' - snow tomorrow?). The ribbon was just folded back on itself using (an indecent amount of) Scor Tape.
Soft and sweet. And it makes me happy! :)
Thanks for dropping by!

Another post already?

Yup! :) This one is a bit special since I made it specifically for the challenge over at Mo's Challenge blog. The challenge was to make a Christmas card for someone special using traditional colors. I hope these can be considered traditional!
Now, I have to say, I'm not warming up to digital stamps the way I thought I would. Why? Well, mostly because I have a ton of trouble printing them! It's definitely something to do with operator error (not Mo's files - those are awesome!) but I can't manage to get one printed that looks good in under an hour. Yes, an hour! It's going to take some serious work to figure out what the problem is - in the meantime I've added this fairy stamp (and a couple of others) to my wish list now that they're being made by Stampavie. Hope I've been good enough for Santa!
I fell in love with this fairy just as soon as I saw her. I could think of all kinds of ways to use her - Christmas theme just happened to come first. There are a *lot* of things going on here - let me take you step by step.
First I printed the image (about 15 times, but you knew that). Then I colored her with a combination of Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils and Prismacolor pencils. Honestly I'm not all that fond of Prismas but the Lyras don't have as many shades and I needed some 'flesh' colors. My understanding is that Prisma pencils are wax based and Lyras are oil based - the Lyra pencils blend like a dream! Everything on that panel was colored with Lyra pencils and blended with either OMS or the Splender pencil except the flesh colors. Even the sky!
Once the fairy was colored I used my Xyron to adhere it to a piece of white card stock (I told you the printer was giving me fits!). Using nesties and my cuttlebug I cut & embossed the panel. By then I felt comfortable adding glue and glitter to her wings, stickles to the star and some Radiant Pearls to her dress and belt. I set it aside to dry and started working on the green piece.
The green piece started out as a plain piece of white card stock which I colored with Pine Needles Distress Ink. The tree (Stamp Oasis, I think) was stamped several times with the same ink. Using Matte Mod Podge I glued a piece of mulberry like paper (with those silver & gold flecks in it) to the top of the green. Once dry I used the ScorIt to score the edges and a paper piercer to pierce around that. Finally (although you can't see it in the picture) I ran it through my cuttlebug with the snowflake Impressability from Spellbinders.
Layers of muted gold card stock were added, then everything was mounted on a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 base card cut from decorative white/pearl card stock. That, of course, was also edged with Pine Needles. :) As the very last step I added the metal star clip and a Swarovski crystal to the top.
I wish you could all see this in person! It's very textured with lots of sparkle. And I *LOVE* my Christmas fairy!
Thanks for dropping by!

My first digistamp!

I finally broke the seal! :)
Although there have been some interesting moments trying to print it (Vista *still* does not play well with others on the network) and some frustration with printing in black & white *only*, I finally got my first digi printed and made into a card. Woohoo!
The image is from Mo's Digital Pencil Too shop. I just *adore* this little angel. There are a few (ok, a lot) more images that I want to try, but Michael was my first.
A few of the details:
Michael was printed on our HP deskjet printer (it's pretty old) on Georgia Pacific white card stock. I wasn't sure that actual card stock would go through, but there was no problem with that.
Coloring was mostly done with colored pencils - Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor (I like these way better than prismacolors) - and OMS. The cloud that he's resting on was colored with some gray pencil along the bottom & then gone over with white Smooch. Sorry, I just couldn't seem to get a good picture of the shine! The other thing I learned is that my printer ink does not do well with Copics. If you look close at the bottom of the cloud you can see where I tried to add some sky color - and it made the black ink run a little. So, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good for a first try!
The cloud background was done with a scalloped circle and Distress Inks in Weathered Wood and Broken China. You can see that I went over the cloud tops with more Smooch - it gives you an idea of what Michael's cloud looks like IRL.
The edges were punched with a punch from paper studio, I wanted to go all around but I couldn't get it to line up nicely. Instead I used some of the star punched pieces and glued them around the edges of the layer. Those were given a little Smooch too! :)
Thanks for visiting, hope you enjoyed your stay!