Sorry for the lapse in my blog. I have been busy teaching and designing new projects and enjoying the beauty of Autumn. This is a really fun Snowman Card to make. The snowman stamp is Sam from Silver Fox Stamps and More, if you are not familiar with Sheila and John's line of stamps click through to their website to see their entire catalog. I designed this for a class I taught at Silver Fox, on using Spica Micro Glassflake Pens and Spellbinder's Nestabilities. When I started creating this project I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with Sam, first I cut him out using a rectangular nestabilities die..but I didn't like the white background. so I decided to cut him entirely out leaving scalloped bottom that had been created by the die. Next I used Christmas Stripes from Pebble Inc and cut out a rectangle using my nestabilities die. The Shamrock Green cardstock is from Worldwin's Treasures Collection, it's a great Christmas Green. In the past I have used my spica pens for highlighting areas of an image but for this card I really wanted my snowman to shimmer and for my students to really get a feel for how beautiful the Spica pens are on an image. Spica Microglass flake pens are a waterbased pigment ink (not alcohol ink like Copics), which means if you color in one location too many times the Spica will eat the paper (when the water content becomes too high). But the Spica's are Copic compatible which means for larger areas of coloring I color first with my Copic Sketch Marker and then I highlight the area with the Spica pens. What makes these pens better than a traditional glitter pen? These pens will last twice as long as traditional glitter pens with over 350 yards of writing pigment and micro glass. They have been designed with a no clog tip and write with a very fine line. They add just a touch of shimmer to any project and dry instantly. Currently Spica's are available in 13 colors and are now arriving at stores nationwide. Here is your Checklist so that you can collect them all.
| Spica Micro Glass Flake Pens | ||
| Collect all 13 | ||
| Sku # | Color/Description | Have |
| 01 | Lavendar | |
| 02 | Pink | |
| 03 | Red ( Great Xmas Red) | |
| 04 | Orange | |
| 05 | Lemon | |
| 06 | Melon (Bright Green) | |
| 07 | Olive (Great Xmas Dk Green) | |
| 08 | Turquoise | |
| 09 | Sky Blue (Blue) | |
| 10 | Black | |
| 11 | Gold | |
| 12 | Silver | |
| 13 | Clear | |
| Waterbased Pigment Ink | ||
| Acid- Free, Non-Toxic, Archival | ||
| 350 Yards of Micro Glass Flakes | ||
| Twice the writing length of other pens | ||
| Dries instantly for maximum sparkle | ||
| Copic compatible | ||
| Transparent ink with lots of bling | ||
| Perfect Stocking Stuffers | ||
Retail is $2.99 ea |
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My favorite color of Spica is clear, since I can use it over anyone of my 322 colors of Copic sketch Markers. Isn't that cool - one pen - 322 colors.
When I was coloring Sam's Hat, I added a red band using my Spica Microglass flake pen and colored in the rest of the hat with my Copic Sketch marker YG03. I shaded the left hand side of the hat with G... and then colored the entire hat area with the Melon Spica. I colored his twig arms with E33, and then shaded with E08., then I used my clear Spica to highlight the arms, since Spica doesn't have a brown. For the scarf I used my Red & Melon Spica's to color direct on the stamped image as these areas were small. I used my R29, and R59 to color in Sam's vest which I then highlighted with a red Spica.
I shaded the snowman and the scalloped edge with C1, and then added some clear spica to Sam to make him shimmer. For the green mat I used a slightly larger Spellbinder Rectangle scalloped die and cut and embossed the image. For a little more blink I added Rhinestone Stickers from Kaiser Crafts. The card base is a white glitter card from Diecuts with a View, which I airbrushed with YG07. The snowflake ribbon is from American Crafts.
Here is a close -up of the Ivy Embellishment from Making Memories - the dark green lines are my Olive Spica Micro glass flake pen...Finally a photograpgh that shows the Spica sparkle!!!
