I have joined the Darkside....

Well... I sold a bunch of stuff at a sale my LSS has and ended up with a ton of store credit. So I have done something I never thought I would do... I invested in copics. Colouring with them is most definately a skill (hence my not having anything to post this week!), and there are some nuances such as what ink to stamp with, what paper to use... and apparently how long to let the ink dry. I am currently working out the paper issue as I would  like not to have to buy special paper when I have so much CTMH in stock. I wasn't having any trouble blending or anything, the issue was that the stamped image was bleeding. I did notice though that when I printed out the colour chart to track what I had, the printer ink didn't bleed, so apparently the heat from the printer set it up a little. I am currently about to colour with some images that have been sitting a few days, so we will see what happens... so far so good though. I am using the recomended Memento Tuxedo Black Dye ink for my images by the way.

The other thing that people don't tell you is that you want to be smart about the first markers you buy if you are looking for a good blending. Don't just buy a random assortment of colours, because you won't have anything to shade with! You want to start out with a few basic colours (ie brown) and then pick 2 or 3 that are just a few numbers apart from each other. You can get away with 2, because you can use the colourless blender pen and a tip to tip technique. So much to learn!

So that is my copic story so far. Hopefully I will have some success and gt some projects up for you later this week!

Little Bit of Whimsy Sketch Contest

Well I have been slacking on my posts lately, but I will try to do better. Below is my entry to the My Little Bit of Whimsy sketch contest. I used Close to my Heart's new "Stella" Collection papers. I cut out the beautiful circle flower and layered it on top of a paper where I inked the edges with cocoa brown ink and a sponge. I used several other papers to layer, and added some zip strip stripes and a little bit of lace ribbon from The Paper Studio. The picture is mounted on a piece of paper embossed in a cuttlebug folder I have long since forgotten the name of. I then used the sponge and a little bit of ink to make it pop a little. The title is stamped with Close to my Heart's Bohemian Alphabet (One of my all time favs). The flowers are layer, bottom is CTMH's new coloured paper blossoms with the lacey flowers from their new Bohemian assortment. I really like this page... the Stella paper is great... even though the stamps make her look like a skinny bitch... teehee.

 Happy Scrappin all!

Contest Winner!!

Hi all,

I had 3 crafty submissions for the contest, which is a good start for my first giveaway I think. Thanks Dom, Leslie and Jason/Tina (who submitted on facebook). It  was a tough decision, but the winner is..............Leslie!! Her creation is shown below.

Lovely eh? I will be sending her 3 EZ Mounted Sweet Pea stamps. Thanks for participating everyone.

Strange Coincidences

Well Boys and Girls tonight I would like to show you one of my recent cards. Now here is where the coincidence comes in... I first saw this stamp coloured with blackish hair on the Sweet Pea site and there seemed to be something familiar about it. So I bought it, stamped it out and it hit me that it looks like my friend (and model) Heather (well except for the whole being a mermaid thing...).
So the first picture is Heather in all her glory (taken by Shari Tucker). The second is a picture of the card I sent her... thanks for the leopard print sweetie!!

So I coloured the image with chalks, as per usual. It is cut out using a spellbinders, the base was a pair of Fiskars corner rounding scissors, as were the two mats. The paper is Close to my Heart "Wicked". The flowers are made using a Cuttlebug die (that is my new FAV!! and unfortunately they aren't making any more) then rolled using a quilling tool. There were brown pearls in the center of each flower, but Canada Post sorta knocked them off. I think that it still looks ok though.

Thanks Heather and Shari!!

Little Ray of Sunshine

Well Boys and Girls,

I am having a pretty crappy week. Can't seem to be healthy enough to get to school, bad news. Especially since no work= no play (a self imposed rule, but needed to be done). So I thought I would share some cards I had done the other night with you.

This first one is done using a dry emboss technique on pergamano paper, then painted it with Twinkling H2O's. I made the bases fairly plain to let the embossing stand out. I think I like the smaller one better though....

The second one features an image from Sweet Pea (you knew there had to be one). I love the imagery in  the picture. The love between Mom and babe. The image is coloured with chalks. Used a Spellbinders die to cut the image and the mat. The paper is CTMH, as is the border and the pearls. I sprayed the border with Chocolate Cherry Glimmer Mist. You unfortunately can't see the deepness of that spray in the picture, but it is really a great effect with the brown base and this beautiful red sheen to it.

Have a good night, and don't forget the contest....

So Much BIG news today.

Ok well let me try this again. There is so much great big news today!

To start with (yes I am a few days late) the fabulous ladies at Sweet Pea stamps featured some of my creations on their blog the other day. Click on their name to check out my work.

To end with, I have been chosen as one of the blogs featured on Stop and Scrap.com's countdown to Christmas Blog Hop. That means that 3 fabulous people will win one of a $25 or 2 $10 shopping sprees on their fabulous store website. If you haven't been there you absolutely have to check it out, they have EVERYTHING paper craft related that you can imagine.  We will be having a Christmas card contest on my day, and all you will have to do is post up a link and follow my site. Easy Peasy! When I know, you will know.

Happy Crafting and you may even get another post from me tonight, I have some layouts to show.

Super Easy Christmas Card

Hi All,

So everyone has a huge list of people that they would like to send Christmas Cards to, but if you are like me you have a few people that don't appreciate the awesomeness of your cards as much as you would like to. I always try to make some quick cards that still look great for those people. This is one that I made the other day that doesn't take too long to come together.

First I stamped the snowman image on cardstock, I used Staz-on but not required when using chalks to colour. Step 2 was to fire on some colour, and it went on as quick as make-up with a few little strokes. To keep the chalk in place there is a splash of Glimmer Mist over the top. I then used a circle punch to punch the image out. The card base it made using the Dahlia Spellbinders Nestabilities, with one edge up off the edge of the paper where the fold is. I then stamped one of the new Heartfelt Creations stamps (They are made to match up with spellbinder dies, how fabulous!!). I then covered the front with Sookwang tape, and obviously there was then a need to cover it with Glitter Ritz. Remember that the Glitter Ritz is fussy about adhesives, so I used liquid glass to stick on the snowman.

What do you think?