Polished to Perfection

No Tricks Just Treats!! and More Blog Candy Alerts!!

In the midst of posting all my JustRite Christmas Projects, JustRite was having their Stampin' Champion Contest and the projects were amazing.  I particularly liked the great Halloween projects everyone was making.  Since our kids aren't home for that Holiday, I found that I really didn't own any Halloween stamps to speak of.  So when I was out shopping I found this great stamp and sentiment from Northwood RubberStamps - that I just couldn't resist.  Even my husband got a chuckle out of the sentiment. 

I found this great paper from Making Memories that was perfect for my project.  It has a fun stripe on one side and great spider web paper on the reverse side.  I am always partial to double sided paper. The bats are made using Martha Stewarts new bat punch.  I punched out 6 bats and adhered the bodies together in pairs of two.  Next I folded up the top pair of wings to make them as 3-D as possible.  To give them even more depth, I used a versamagic watermark pen to color the bodies and then I clear embossed them.

I have certainly missed over the past few months playing with my copic markers.  So it was great fun to sit down and color this image.   I started by stamping my image on white cardstock.  After coloring in my image I found the white background was just too white for me.  Using a foam make up applicator I smooched in yellow ink in the background then I added orange ink around the edges with the make up applicator.  This gave it a warm glow.

The spider paper only comes with one spider, but in my confetti collection I found these great spiders which I added everywhere.  Since my Halloween Collection of Stamps is almost non- existence, My new JustRtite Brayton Font and my Large Harmony Rectangular Stamper came in more than handy.  This is the 95 point size. (this size font comes with only one of each letter).  I have 3 sets of Brayton font.  To get this size image - I stamped the verse in two stages.  First The " Just Tricks"  then " Just Treats".  I added a hand drawn spider web to my green paper to pull the design together.  You will be amazed and how often you will reach for your JustRite Font once you start using it.  You have any word, phrase or saying at your finger tips.

Blog Candy Alert- Help Sharon Harnist - Paperfections celebrate hitting 500K!!

You could win a Harmony Rectangular Stamper and a set of Brayton Font.  Play by visting here - Her Blog Candy will be live Sept 17th at 12:01 pm.

Visit the JustRite Blog - where they are giving away a complete collection of Pre- Inked Letters play by clicking here

Now one of my favorite projects from the contest were the cute Test Tube Treat boxes that Lisa Somerville designed you can find her turorial here. You can find Lisa's template for this project here. Lisa Thanks for the inspiration and sharing your template.  These were so much fun to make and I decided to give mine a personal touch.  My oldest son Nick is scared of spiders.( Screaming like a girl scared).  Which seems so strange to me since I am the only girl in the house.  I am afraid of mice, bats, snakes and I am not overly fond of anything with wings flying over me or near me.  Which means the boys are always leaving plastic bugs everywhere in the hopes of scaring mom. (especially Jack).  So I thought I would design my project with Jack and Nick in mind. 

The Trick or Treat Ribbon and the Happy Halloween Ribbon are from Martha Stewart.  I just love how fab they have looked on all the projects.  I like the narrower size.  The Tag embellishment is also from here collection with a JustRite Twist.  I removed the 3-D pumpkin from its base and replaced it with a new white cardstock circle that I had stamped using my JustRite 1 5/8" wooden stamper with my small letter set.  Hint:  you will want to purchase more than one set of small letters and some additional blocks so that you can leave a few of your favorite sayings set up on your blocks.  How cool to be able to design your own stamp verbiage whenever you want!!

   

This is one of my kids favorite saying- so it seem more than fitting for their Halloween Treats.

Copic Sketch Marker tips and techniques straight from CHA

CHA was a blast!!  Unfortunately, I did not have access to a computer while I was away. So I have lots to catch you up on.  My apologies for not blogging this weekend, but I was desperately trying to catch up on some much needed sleep. I don't recommend flying home on the red eye!!!

Working at the Copic booth demonstrating with Debbie Olson, Trudee Sauer and Michelle White was amazing...all that coloring talent in 20 feet of space.  I personally enjoyed meeting everyone!!  Especially Marianne who is a coloring guru- her Manga Drawings are truly amazing.  I wish I had taken a few photos of her work to share with you.

But as you may have read in Debbie's blog...we did have a few small issues at the beginning of the show. The educational part of the trade show started on Saturday and the trade show itself started on Sunday, but our tradeshow booth and all our supplies didn't arrive until Monday. Luckily, I had carried my Copic Markers with me to the show (as I just couldn't leave home without with my favorite tools).  Luckily I wasn't the only person who felt compelled to travel with their copic markers- so after a few phone calls we were able to assemble a nice array of copic products to demonstrate with. 

I learned tons of coloring and shading tips from Marianne and I think you will instantly see the difference in my latest projects.  I can't wait to share her tips with you over the next few days!   Here is a close-up of the Northwood Rubberstamps Birdhouse Trio that I colored for my Phone Post-it Note Holder:

Tip 1: Coloring the basic image- color your image using a circular stroke. Turn over your paper and if the color has not bleed evenly through to the backside of the paper, then you have not applied enough color. Using this technique will eliminate any streaking within the image.

Tip 2: Shading -As you are collecting your Copic Sketch Markers you will find that until your collection is large enogh often your marker selection may contain colors that are more than 3 values apart.  To create a medium value place the darker marker in your secondary hand and place the lighter colored marker in your primary hand. Next stroke the side of the brush end of the lighter marker over the brush tip of your darker marker. This will load the darker marker onto your lighter colored marker and will create a medium tone.  Don't panic- adding color to your lighter colored marker will not ruin your marker.  Choose the area you wish to color and color the entire area with the lightest color. Next side,,, load your lightest color marker as instructed above and shade the image.  As the color works out of your marker it will return to its original color.  If you get a sharp edge of color, simply use the lighter colored marker and feather the sharp edge and it will lighten. Next add a tiny shaded line with the darker marker and use the lighter colored marker to feather the color into the medium value.

Tip 3: Lightening an area- If you color in an area and decide the color is too dark, use the colorless blender in a circular motion over the top of what you have colored and the colorless blender will remove some of the color and lighten the image.

Tip 4:  My favorite tip of all !! - Have you ever colored an image and accidently colored outside the stamped image just slightly !!  Well Marianne showed me the most amazing trick.  Simply take your colorless blender sketch tip and place it beyond the mistake and begin coloring toward the color which extends beyond the stamped image.  Color with the colorless blender right to the stamped line and the Copic color will recede back behind the stamped line.  Wish I had known that trick a couple of months ago, since I am almost ready for bifocal contacts and late at night the lines seem to move as I am coloring.  It literally works like an eraser.  Thanks Marianne!! That tip is worth its weight in gold!!  You can do this trick even weeks after you have colored an image...so I will be revisiting my rejected image stash for a little repair work!!

My earlier post with my black and white desk pad post it note holder was rather brief as I was literally packing my suitcase to leave for California and a couple of people asked me to post more detailed directions.  So here goes.

To create this phone post-it note stand purchase a 5 x 7 or 4 x 6 acrylic frame. ( I prefer the larger size).

Place the frame on its side, with the highest part of the slope at the back.  Next I stamped the Northwood Rubber Stamp Treehouse trio in Adriondack Pitch Black.  Here is a list of the colors of sketch markers I used to color in the image:

(I will be back tomorrow morning to list all the color combinations of Copic I used).  Note that I purposely colored darker centers for my tiny flowers in order to give them more depth in the design.

I then diecut the image with my largest scalloped rectangle nestability and I dry embossed the die by running it back through the wizard.  To balance the blue in the design I mated the image with a narrow blue mat.  Cut a 5 x 7 mat from the pink swirl paper , then adhere pink and white polka dot ribbon to the mat , adhere the stamped image to the pink paper.  Note that you will need to be careful how much layering you do on your design, as you will need to slip the design in between the 2 pieces of plexiglass.  On my first design (the black and White design) my ribbon was braided and had to be placed on top of the acrylic frame.  On this design I was able to place the ribbon on the paper and inside the frame.  Be careful as you insert the design into the frame, it is very easy to catch an edge and ruin your image.

Christmas in New England

Tonight I thought I would just post a quick Christmas Card with a brief description. This stamp reminds me of a New England Winter.  I stamped it with Adrionadack Pitch Black and colored it with Copic Markers.  The stamp is from Northwood Rubber Stamps and the border is Holiday Ribbon from Lockhart Stamp Company.  For added shimmer I used my Olive and Melon Spica in the green areas and in the locations on the image that were snow I used designer dries clear adhesive to apply crystal glitter from the Art Glitter Institute. The red and white polka dot paper is Rudoplh from American Crafts.   Thanks for stopping in!!

322 Copic Sketch Marker colors where do I start?

                      

When I first saw these Glitter cards from Diecuts with a View, I fell in love. Then I found the red glitter cards and all I could think about was that I was not in Kansas anymore.  These red cards look just like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers from the Wizard of OZ. Just wait til you see this week how this glitter paper will make your projects pop. The cards come in White, Green, Blue, Pink and Red and come in 2 sizes A2 and 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" squares complete with envelopes.  Diecuts also has glitter packs of paper in various sizes.  Unfortunately, the glitter packs do not contain this gorgeous red paper though.

If you have been reading my blog since July - you will remember me telling you that I was working on my friend Angela -who is traditionally a scrapbooker, but I could see the cardmaker in her blossoming.  This is Angela's first Copic Christmas card and I was right......She's a great cardmaker! The stamp is from Northwoods Rubberstamp and the Christmas paper is from American Crafts.  This paper is double sided and is a great card weight.  Angela used my nestability dies to crop the stamped image as well as cut the mats for the image. She used used the Classic Scallop Circle Circles Large and the Standard Circle Large Set of Nestabilities to create this card. Congratulations Angela your card is beautiful!! Thanks for letting me post it on my blog.

I have been playing with my Copic Sketch Markers over the last month trying to decide which colors should be the first colors you purchase.  I know eventually we will need them all but to begin with this is my recommendation for the first 25 colors based on using them for a variety of themes,seasons and paper maufacturers. Since every marker can be a blending marker, I chose a light color and a medium dark color to start with since you will be able to blend the medium tones.

Here is my recommendation of where to start with your Copic Sketch Marker selection:

Yellows -  Y06,Y11,Y17   Orange - YR04   Reds - R08,R29,R59  Pinks - RV02, RV34 Purples - BV01 V09

Blues - B00,B06,B97   Browns- E08,E29,E33,E37 Greens-  G17,G21,YG67,YG03 Gray- C3  Black - BV29

Colorless - 00

A special thanks to Mary who posted our most recent store visit (including pictures of us) on her blog today with a link to our blogs. You can visit Mary's blog at It's all about the Journey. Congratulations Mary for being selected to join Cornish Heritage Farms Blog Design Team!!

Copic Sketch Markers Airbrushed

                           

                         

Can I say I am addicted to the Copic Airbrush System!!  You got it I airbrushed my napkins for my Thanksgiving Table setting.  Now this started as a very simple search for a fall napkin that I could design a paper napkin ring for to match my Thanksgiving Place cards.  Every year I wish I had time to set a beautiful Thanksgiving Table.  Somehow this Holiday gets smooched between Halloween and Christmas and the madness of Black Friday.  So this year I decided to design my table in September. After searching everywhere for the perfect Thanksgiving napkin for my table, I settled for a pale yellow paper napkin hoping to design an over the top paper napkin ring.  Pondering this plain napkin on the drive home the light bulbs went off and I decided to try my hand at airbrushing the napkin with my Copic Sketch Markers and my Dreamweaver Stencils. 

     Anyone who has taken a Dreamweaver Stencil class from me knows that I never teach traditional stenciling...I prefer embossing paste, gold leafing, krylon webbing, spray inks and the cool stuff!!  Well let me just say that airbrushing my stencils is now COOL STUFF!!  I airbrushed all four corners of my cloth napkin ( yep, you guessed it - a trip back to town for cloth napkins once I saw how gorgeous the paper napkins looked).  To achieve the airbrushing I cut out a triangle from a piece of copy paper to mask the second image on the stencil. Next I taped off the paper, making sure the removable tape did not cover any of the stencil. Don't be stingy with your tape!! You need to tape down all the edges or you will over spray onto your napkin.  First I airbrushed the stencil with an orange Copic Sketch Marker, skipping over the acorns, then I airbrushed some red, making sure that I did not cover all the orange.  Then I used brown to airbrush the acorns.  I repeated this all four sides of the napkin. ( you may need to re-tape your paper mask before you reach your fourth corner as the copic markers may make your tape less sticky as you work your way around the napkin). You won't believe how fast and easy you can airbrush your stencil. Allow your napkin to air dry and then heat set it with an iron.  Place a towel between your iron and the napkin.  To clean your stencil use rubbing alcohol.  If you happen to airbrush your fingers - Windex works great for cleaning your hands.

Now in that search for the perfect table setting, I could only find white place cards with silver edging. But the place cards had a glossy coating which meant I could use my Copic Sketch Ink Refills to alter them and make them look like Polished Stone Paper.  I like to use a wide applicator for creating polished stone paper.  I used a yellow refill and simply dabbed the re-inker over the entire place card.  I placed the re-inker ink directly on my applicator and dabbed it up and down all over the place card. I added extra ink to the silver edging, which now looks gold!!  The Copic re-inkers take slightly longer to dry than traditional Alcohol ink.  After my image dried I stamped and embossed in black Happy Thanksgiving. MSE has a new thanksgiving clear stamp set with the perfect size verse for the place cards. The pumpkins for the place card and the gift tag were made from a stack of pumpkin stamp from Northwoods Rubberstamp. Here is the gift bags for my Thanksgiving Guests:

                            

     When I first started coloring in the grapes for this image the purple Sketch marker I had was too dark, so I simply used my Copic Sketch Blending Pen to color over the purple and the blending pen picked up the excess ink and lightened my grapes.  Then I used a paper paint palette to dab some of my purple sketch marker on and used my blending pen to pick up the ink from the palette.  This method gave me a much softer shade of purple. You can us the lighter color of any marker to pick up the ink from a darker version of the same color to create a medium tone. (yes, your lighter colored markers can be used like a blending pen).  I stamped this image twice, and cut the bottom pumpkin for the place card.  I used the middle of the pumpkin image for the gift tag.  I plan on stamping my guest names on the reverse side of the place card- closer to the Holiday.

Pumpkin Patch Gift Bag

                                 

                   

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day Weekend.  Sorry for the lapse in my blog...I took a little time for some much needed R&R.  Well, it certainly is hard to believe that Fall is just days away.  In honor of fall,( my favorite season) I thought that this week I would devote my energies to Fall and Thanksgiving Designs.  Here I created a great gift bag using my Copic Sketch Markers and my Copic Sketch Blending Pen. Here's a copic coloring tip: If you are coloring in a large area like my pumpkins, first color the entire area with the blending pen then while it is still wet color in the area with your colored marker.  The wet surface allows you to color a larger area without streaks.  To make the fall leaves I used my Marvy Leaf punches on Copper Petallic Paper from Worldwin. After I punched them I filled my A2  Swirls Embossing Folder with the punched out leaves and ran them through my cuttlebug and adhered them to the bag.  The Rubber stamp is from Northwoods Rubberstamp.  The ribbon is from American Crafts. This is a very inexpensive way to custom design and personalize solid colored gift bags.  I plan on filling this bag with chocolate truffles and bringing it as a hostess gift to a party this weekend (I hope she doesn't read my blog this week)

Pastel Snowmen

This Snowman Family oval stamp from Northwood Rubberstamps was just calling for a little Copic Markers.  I thought it would be a great to show you a Christmas Card in pastels.  And to show off the Pastel Petallics from World Win.  These Petallics, like Bazzills Metallics emboss in the Cuttlebug beautifully.  The images are crisp and clear and look awesome on the Pastel Stripes Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations. I chose the snowflake and swirl A2 embossing folders, I thought the swirl would look like wind behind this cheery snow family.  I used my purple Spica Mica Glass flake to highlight the oval edge of the stamp.  This is card 3 for my Copic Christmas Card Class.   The next classes are Wednesday August 29th at 10 a.m. and Saturday September 1st at 10 a.m. Class fee for all 3 cards is $20.00.  If you would like to attend this class but the dates do not work for you please email me when you are available to take this class and I will set up a class around your schedule.

Copic Markers on a Birdhouse Christmas Card

 

At every tradeshow I search for Christmas Paper and finding a great Christmas line is often a challenge. This CHA, I hit the jackpot when I visited the American Crafts Booth.  This paper is absolutley gorgeous and all double sided.  It comes with a great line of Christmas Ribbon which I can't wait to get my hands on.  I thought this was the perfect stamp form Northwood Rubberstamps, to show you how beautifully the Copic Markers work. I was able ta achieve beautiful shading even if I didn't have the perfect color of marker since I could use the lighter shade marker to pick up some of the alcohol ink from a marker that was too dark.  It was just like painting. (As you will see my addiction is starting). To give the card more dimension I added Deco Arts Snow Text Writer to the snow covered birdhouse and while it was wet I added crystal glitter from Art Institute Glitter. If you do not own any of this glitter yet, I recommend that the crystal glitter should be your first purchase with the designer dries clear adhesive.I also prefer the translucent glitters to the opaque glitters.  And by the way these glitters come in over 300 colors.  They also come in Pee Wee Kits which allow you to purchase 6 small viles of glitter in one kit. To the snowflake brads and the base of the birdhouses I just added the crystal glitter.  Next I airbrushed the outside of the image with my copic marker airbrush system. This made the birdhouses look like they were in the clouds. As I starting layering my card, I decided I needed to also airbrush the card itself as the Christmas paper I chose did not have any blue in it.  I love the effect.  Last but not least I used my Spica glitter pen to fill in the centers of some of the background designs.  I can't wait for everyone to try these pens, but they are not available yet (sorry to be such a tease!!)