Polished to Perfection

Impression Obsession Seashell Collage

While I have been posting my One Heart..One Mind Marathon,  I have been very busy playing with new card designs.  Here is on of my favorites.  The stamp is from Impression Obsession, as you may have noticed I love the Ocean so I fell in love with this stamp and it's verse " Listen and you will hear a Symphony."  To create the card I stamped with stazon ink on another Judikin Laminating Sheet.  I let the image dry and then I peeled off the backing and gently tapped on leftover Pieces of Gold Leafing, I chose to place the copper toned leaving in back of the verse so that your eye would be drawn to the verse. Using a stencil brush I burnished off any excess leafing and placed the excess back into my gold leafing tin.  I save every particle of leafing material as you can use even the tiniest piece as you will see in tomorrows post. I have tried several brands of leafing and I prefer La D'ore Gold Leaf, it comes in ten color combinations and since these were scraps I am not sure which leafing color this is.  I love them all. The are available in Designer colors or Variegated Colors.

Next I mounted the image on Black Kromekote and then placed it on a piece of Fall Foliage Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations.  The starfish and shells are real.  Since the starfish were Rather delicate I used B100 in my Airbrush system to air bush the back and sides of the starfish to give them depth on the card.  Then I used my Gold Kyrlon pen to color the top of the starfish.  For the shell I used the brush end of my B100 Copic Sketch marker to color the entire shell and then I gently touched the top surfaces of the shell with my gold Krylon Pen.  My Black Ribbon has an interesting woven vertical stripe which unfortunately does not show in the photography.  The letters are an Antique Mold Alphabet from Jo-Ann ScrapEssential line and have been in my stash for a couple of years. For the final touch I used my Kyrlon Gold Leafing Pen to edge the entire card.  Here is a close up of the card:

 

I will try to take a more closeup view of the shell so you can see how beautifully antiqued it is with the Copic Marker and the Gold Krylon Pen.

Copic Sketch Markers to the Rescue

Now I must confess, that my husband help me design tonight's card.  I often use him to bounce ideas off, as I am designing and tonight he was on fire!!  Yeah, I know I'm really spoiled, he gets it -all of it!! Now sometimes there is an advantage to my husband helping with the design process and tonight's card is a prime example.

Using Stazon Jet black Ink, I stamped this beautiful F1480 Fish Stained Glass from Impression Obsession onto a sheet of transparent Laminating sheets from Judkins. I peeled off the backing and slowly sprinkled art glitter from the Art Glitter Institute (they have an incredible line of transparent glitters in way too many colors) by color into each section of the stamped image. For this project I used their Pee Wee Caribbean Set. To really make the image show off the glittered background you need to place the image on a light colored background. Robin's Nest Polished Stone Paper looked great behind the image, but as we were trying out Polished Papers and Glitter Papers, we came across this yellow glitter paper from Diecuts with a View and it just made the glittered image sing!!  I used the largest die from my Large Scalloped Nestability Set to die cut the yellow glittered scalloped circle.  Now what's extremely cool about these nestabilities is that you can actually nest them before you use them.  So I was able to use my Circle set to cut The Turquoise Polished Stone ring around my image, this was key because the glittered image did not work on the Turquoise Polished Stone. To accomplish this I placed the two largest circle dies together on the B Plate of my Cuttlebug and taped them in place, so they wouldn't shift during the die cut process.  This allowed me to create the beautiful Turquoise Ring.  I also ended up with the interior circle which I will save for a later date.  These dies were designed to all work together, so I could have also cut the exterior circle with a scalloped edge and the interior with a regular circle.  Once you get playing with these dies and all the great scraps circles and scallops you won't be able to stop designing. (I'll show you what I mean in tomorrow's post.)

After adhering together my image ,rings and scalloped mat, I placed it on the Robin's Nest Polished Stone mat.  I made a 5 x 7 card from Turquoise Polished Stone Paper.  Now I liked where my card was going but in the 5 x7 format there was way too much blank space.  So this is when I ask my husband for a little help.  He really wanted to edge the Robin's Nest mat with a black line (If only a Krylon pen came in black!!) So we decided to mat it with black glossy Kromekote paper leaving only a 1/16th inch border.  Next he decided it needed a fancy corner punch.  Of course I went to my bubbles corner punch, but remembered that it wasn't meant to be used on a card front , so we settled on the basket weave punch.   Again, he wanted a Black Krylon Pen to color the basket weave design, I reminded him that they don't make one and he said "why can't we use your Black Copic Sketch Marker", I was a little skeptical...but wow it worked on Murdock's Polished Stone Paper and looked just like Black Kromekote!!  Now I was still feeling like there was to much open space in the design,  my husband once again said "don't you still have Class a Peel seashell stickers leftover somewhere"  After a bit of digging I found some from Stampendous and additional stickers from Magenta. But some of my shells were plain silver and some were multi colored....but not for long, you guessed it...COPIC TO THE RESCUE!!!!! Just add a little yellow, a little green and a little pink Copic added to your silver stickers and now they are all multicolored!!! The ink dried instantly and I was dancing a happy jig!!  I decided to place the stickers on scraps of glittered paper and to give them a little more depth I added --you guessed a little more Copic Color.  These markers are truly amazing!!! I can't wait to add more to my collection!! For the finally touch I added a blue dot sparkler for the fishes eye. I love these, they come in tons of colors and each sheet has tons of dots in lots of sizes.  They work perfect for adding a little more bling to almost anything!! 

                                             

Thanks for visiting!!!       

How to create a stained glass effect using Copic Sketch Markers

Sheila at Silver Fox Stamps was kind enough to send me a few of her stamps to play with and they have been sitting on my workspace for weeks. Since, Sheila is sponsoring a contest and blog candy on Cheryl's blog, check her blog for all the details. I thought it would be a perfect time for me to  play with the SG851 Dragonfly Stained Glass Lg Stamp. I personally love dragonfly and Butterfly stamps, so I was very excited to play with this stained glass image.

My first thought was to stamp the image on glossy white paper and color it with my Copic Sketch markers.  I was curious to see how they would work on the glossy paper.  They worked great but since the surface is glossy the pigments atay on top of the paper and are much lighter than when you color on mat paper.  Since I was looking for a stained glass effect I opted for coloring on mat white so that my image would have a richer color.  I stamped the image with Adriondack Pitch Black and then colored the design with the following colors: Yellows- (Y17,Y13,Y11), Blues- (B06, B05 and I airbrushed the Polished Stone Paper with B29), Greens ( YG07,G07), Oranges (YR16,YR02).  For the wheat I used E33, and for the body of the butterfly I used BV01.  After coloring in the image, I cut out the oval and placed it on a piece of chipboard to give my card more dimension.  Then I airbrushed around the edges of an A2 sized card from Kellie Green Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations.  I found a great verse for this card from Impression Obsession - Dragonfly Dreams, which I embossed in black on Sherbert Polished Stone Paper.  I airbrushed around the edge of this lightly with Black 100.

For the next card, I still wanted to try to achieve a more stained glass effect. So I stamped the image and colored it with my Copic Sketch markers on mat paper.  Then I decided to clear emboss the image to make it look like glass. To achieve this look I cut out my image and placed it on chipboard.  I used the sketch end of my Black 100 marker to edge the cardboard.  Next I used a clean versamark watermark pad and pressed it all over the stamped image.  After holding it up to the light I covered the image with clear embossing powder and embossed it.  The first time you will see that there is an uneven look to the embossing. Repeat this step 3 or 4 more times until your image looks like stained glass.  I loved the effect, unfortunately my photo does not show you how beautiful the stained glass effect looks. But it does show you how rich the Copic markers look with clear embossing powder over them. This time I choice to make a 5 x 7 card because I wanted to show off the the image against the beautiful glitter paper from Die Cuts with a View.  This is a piece from their small glitter paper pack.  I used the B29 marker to aribrush around the edges of the glitter paper. Then I matted it with Black Glossy Paper. This tome I decided to airbrush around the edges of the Sherbert Paper with G07 to make the verse really pop.

Here is a side by side comparison of the two card fronts, so that you can see how rich and smooth the clear embossed image is.  I just love the effect.  To see Sheila's entire line of stamps visit her catalog at Silver Fox Stamps.

Thanks Sheila for letting me play with your toys!! It was almost as fun as winning Blog Candy.  Remember to visit Cheryl's Blog Inspire Me to find out all the details for Silver Fox - Stamp Challenge, Blog Candy and Contest.

More Beach Memories

For those of you who have never used stampbord, you are in for a real treat.  Ampersand Art Supply makes these beautiful clay boards, which you can stamp on and then scratch into the surface to create highlights or add detail to your image. I love dimension and this is a great way to add embellishments to your cards and scrapbook pages.  Give your old stamps new life on a new stamping surface.  Stampbord is available in a variety of sizes including coasters,and jewelry boxes.  To create this card, I used Murdock Country Creations -Meditation Scenic Paper.  I cut out the seagull from the paper, placed it on chipboard and placed it on the card. The summer sky stripe is from The Paper Company and the polished stone paper is Robin's Nest from Murdock Country Creations.  To make the stampbord embellishment, I used a make-up wedge to randomly apply three or more shades of blue ink to the stamboard.  Using the wedge I smoothed out the ink and heat set it.  Remember that the clay surface is not like stamping on paper and even dye based inks will need to be heat set before moving onto the next step.  Next I stamped and embossed the image with Ranger extra fine detail black embossing powder. Using the scratch tool, I scratched the image creating areas to leave white and areas to add color to. I used my Copic markers to color the pylons, starfish and life preserver. This stamp has been in my collecton for awhile, it was a design from PSX, I believe it has now been picked up by Inkadinkadoo.

                              

For the second card , I used the same paper and switch to a circle stampbord.  The verse is one of my favorites from Impression Obsession. The sandcastle is from Ann-ticipations. There is something so calming about the roar of the oceans surf. I used gold foil tape from Ranger to trim the outside edge of the stampbord.

Airbrushed Woodland Snowmen

Let me introduce you to four of my new favorite toys, you may have seen these used by many of my favorite bloggers.  The first is Copic Sketch Markers and here are a list of reasons why you will love them:

They are available in 322 colors, are alcohol ink based, double ended, refillable, have a beautiful brush sketch tip which is replaceable, and you can use the tip without ruining it.   Since they are alcohol ink based you can use them on any paper surface.  You can stroke color on your paper more than once, and your paper will not pill like with waterbased markers. But by far the coolest think you can do with them is insert the chisel end into a copic nosel and air can to airbrush with them.  These markers have been used throughout Japan by Illustrators and Manga Artists.  In Asia they are sold in Comic shops. In the last ten years they have become the lead markers used by artist and designers in Asia and Europe.  They are now available in the U.S. and Canada.  Designed for the discerning artist, they have high quality inks and quality construction with a tight fitting cap that ensures that they will last for years when stored properly.  If a tip becomes dried out from the cap being left off or dries from too much air pressure airbrushing.

If you do not have the right color marker for shading you may use the tip of a darker maker to load color onto a paint palette or blank cd, then use a lighter colored marker to pick up the color, like you would a blending pen.

To get the beautiful airbrush effect you can use Sketch markers with Copic's Special Airbrush System, which blows compressed air over the broad nib and puts ink on the paper in that soft-edged airbrush look shown on the edge of my card front and on the scalloped edge of my stamped image. I will go into further detail about how to airbrush with the opic markers in tomorrows blog.

Copic markers are color coded by number as well as the caps truly reflect the color of the marker. Let's begin with a color, say R08, the R stands for the color family Red (B-blue, NG-neutral gray, E-earth, etc.)The last number, 8 in this case, is how dark it is. So R59 would be darker than R08, but R08 would be lighter than R20.The middle number is the color tone or brightness/dullness. In the case of R08, it has a slight orange feel, but an R59 has almost a red-violet tint.

To give depth to an image, choose 3 markers within the same color family (B00, B02, B05 for example). Use the lightest for highlights (B00), and color with this color first. Add the next darkest color for midtones(B02), then use your your darkest shade for shadows(B05).

Next my Spica Glitter Pens from Copic being introduced later this month are the finest line glitter pens I have ever seen.  Unfortunately in this photo you can not see the glitter accents on the snowman, but wait til you use them.  They dry instantly and when you rub your finger over the image you colored you can't even feel the glitter.

To create the beautiful scalloped circle diecut I used Spellbinders Scalloped Circle Large Nestibilities.  This set allows you to cut 5 sizes of circular scallops in 1/4" increments.  And the great news is these dies work in your Cuttlebug. Use the following Cuttlebug Sandwich Recipe: Plate A, Plate B. Die face up, Paper, then use plate C.  Please note that you must use plate C as the top layer. (If you try to use your B plate as the top layer it will warp.)  These dies come in the following basic shapes: circles, ovals, squares, rectangles plus all the same shapes in scallops.  They are scheduled to release later this month.  Ellen Hutson has done a beautiful job explaining the whole collection in her blog. The Snowfalke background paper was designed using Rubber Stamp Tapestry's Winter night Sky SCE3000 Peg Set.  If you have not used these peg stamps yet, you will be in for a treat.  These stamps allow you to create your own stamped image or paper, each set has 5 peg stamps in the kit. I am sure you'll see this set in several of my upcoming blogs. The beautiful stamp is from Impression Obsession, and as soon as I get a chance I will show you a card with this stamped image without the airbrushed sky so you can see how dramatically the image changed when I airbrushed it.  I also want to try it with a winter sunset airbrushed in.