Creepy Cake Anyone?

This cute cake was made by my daughter that lives in Colorado. She loves to make and decorate cakes and cupcakes. Isn't the spider adorable! I just want to stick my finger into the frosting and enjoy it! (Although I'm off sugar now..for 31 days) She even made the layers of the cake different colors! If you're interested in making a spooky cake for today, I think this spooky cake idea was from the Wilton Website.

And this wonderful Halloween card was made by my friend, Joy. I love it! Please be sure to notice the arm bone in his happy mouth! The inside of the card says, "Bad Dog!!" Have a Happy Halloween!

Jan's Two Button Card to Me

Frankie is so cute! Just in case you missed the buttons, they are at the edges of his mouth! Everyone who has seen this card loves him! He's not so scary after all!

I have one more card to receive from Jan for our six week swap. It's been fun to receive someone elses artwork and get to know them. Thanks Jan for all the wonderful cards!

Pink Monochromatic Card

I thought you would like to see this pink monochromatic card. It's....well....rather...PINK. When I look at it I think.. PINK...yes it's supposed to be pink. Yikes!! I guess I never really did a totally pink card before...or monochromatic. I think this is something I need to practice with to really get the hang of it. I know in interior design, a good monochromatic design is hard to achieve and in card making I think that is true also. Experimentation is the best way to try and figure it all out! Anyway, this is the month for PINK and a reminder for monthly self-exams ladies!

I Never Won Anything Before...

Well I can now say I have won something! This wonderful set from Justrite is my prize for linking Croppinsville to my blog. They have an awesome store and blog and soon you will be able to order fabulous items from them as well as view their blog. Allie has some really neat kits that will be for sale in their on-line blog. I'll be sure to let you know when that is all set up for you to check out!

Thanks Croppinsville!

COPIC AIR-BRUSHING & CARD SWAP #6

This card is from a Basic Grey punch out card stock. The hole and the tab were already on the card. I added some charcoal chalk ink around the edges on the front and inside. The big thing is that the interior white cardstock was airbrushed with my COPIC markers and I created a frame around it by using a corner of cardstock and spraying over it. There are three different blue greens on this background: BG10, BG13, BG32.


On the tab I took a piece of cardstock that was punched and placed some repositionable adhesive on the backside and stuck it down to a white piece of Cougar White cardstock. I sprayed the BG32 over the top of this punch. When I took it off, it left a white crisp image underneath. I LOVE what you can do with the COPIC AIRBRUSH SYSTEM! I think purchasing a compressor will add a lot of value to my card making skills…Don’t you think so too!!??

Card Swap Week #5-Buttons

These buttons are wooden leaves and were colored with Stampin Up's groovy guava classic ink, then the veins were defined with a brown thin-line marker. The stamp set is also from Stampin Up. As the card progressed it turned out to be a mono-chromatic card. I placed it in a dark brown envelope and addressed it with a sharpie white poster paint pen. I love this pen! Thanks for checking in!

COPIC Marker Certification!

Yep! I completed the COPIC Certification course last week in Kansas City! It was so much fun and you learn a lot! Marianne Walker is a great artist and teacher. She went into full detail about the COPIC markers and taught us about blending and so many other things that I'll really have to refer back to my notes on a regular basis!

I met a few gals from Denver (Anne) and Omaha (Terri and Anita). I think they were almost as excited as me to learn all these techniques. We all just wanted to absorb as much information as possible. Sharon Harnist and Lori Craig were also at the training class. They are a wealth of knowledge and are very helpful. Please see the links to their blog sites over in the right hand column of my blog.

The marketing company provided a fabulous lunch and we were all very thankful for the lunch and also for their planning of this educational event.

It's great to be associated with so many very nice and talented people!

This imaged was stamped on Neenah Classic Crest cardstock with Memento ink. You can see how I blended a lighter blue COPIC with a lighter pink COPIC in the middle of the chair and also on the arm rests that go down in the the legs. This blending technique is what I worked on in class, after practicing on other paper to try and get it right!

Thanks for checking out my artistic endeavors!

Happy Halloween!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
This ghoulish card has taken a while to create! There had to be a lot of drying time for the stickles that were used. There was a lot of coloring with Copics. I didn’t just make one card I had to make 8! You know my rule, if you’re making one, you may as well make 8.
The houses were stamped first and I also created a mask. Then the clouds were put into the scene along with the orange stickles in all of the windows. Drying time of course! Frankie, Count and Witchie were all stamped previously and colored during a few nights of watching TV. After the stickles were dry, then I stamped the swirls behind Witchie's broom with Versamark ink and sprinkled it with Sparkle N Sprinkle-Tequila Sunrise embossing powder and glitter. It is very difficult to make color and sparkle to show up on black cardstock. Next I attached Witchie with pop dots from Stampin Up. I drew in the sidewalk lines to the houses and then placed Count and Frankie on top of the foreground with pop dots too.
The moon was stamped with white pigment ink and embossed with white pigment powder and had some stickles added to his eye.
The sprigs of grass were added by hand using a WHITE Sharpie poster-paint pen. Now you CANNOT use COPICS to color over this poster paint because the paint will clog the pores of your pen. After the poster paint was dried, I used a Stampin Up marker in Garden Green to go over the top of the white pen. It did make the grass look green instead of white. Hopefully the picture will show green grass.
**NOTE**: After reviewing these pictures on-line I am not really happy how the colors look. If you review the Copic marker color list, you'll get a better idea on how the colors really pop out. Maybe the color isn't true because it's cloudy outside...certainly it couldn't be the photographer!

Details:
Stamps: Stampin Up
Cardstock: Stampin Up, Cougar White
Ink: Stampin Up White Craft Ink
Accents: Stickles in Orange Peel and Lime Green
Copic Markers: V15, Y17, BV08,W3, C1, C3, E00, E55, E35, E31, BV00, 110-black, YG03

Jan's Gemstone Card To Me

This is the card Jan made for our gemstone swap. Don't you just love her little owl??!! It is so cute. In case the picture didn't get the sparkle, the stones are on the band paper behind the tree! Lovely card! Thanks Jan!

Fall Card Swap Week 4

This card was an experiment also. I used SU rub-ons in white, then stamped dots with versamark ink and brushed them with Jacquard pearlescent powders. I attached gemstones on the flowers and then attached the embossed bird with pop dots.

Jan's Chalk Card

Hi everyone! This beauty is Jan's swap card done in chalk. She is the one that gave me the idea to put glaze over the chalked area.

Her example came out much better than mine. Her colors are brighter and clearer and that may be due to the type of dimensional glaze that she used.

Her pink and browns are lovely together. Great card Jan!

Thanks for sending it!

A Quick Airbrush Experiment

I finally had a small amount of time to practice with my COPIC airbrush system. I used a yellow and a red violet color and a piece of cardstock with a circle cut out of the center. I airbrushed the color through the hole in the cardstock, stamped it with a Stampin Up stamp and then cut it out with the Nestabilities dies.

I love the subtle circle in the background. It could be the sun, or the moon! I can see that this is going to be a lot of fun. So I'll be buying more air! HA...buying air...oh brother...IT IS A NECESSITY to make pretty things though!

Fall Card Swap Week 3

Well, here it is! A card made from using chalks as the coloring agent. This has been a good lesson in patience. It takes a lot longer to color in an image when using chalks. I've had them along time and now I remember why I don't use them!

On an extra piece I had here, I decided to put glaze over parts of this colored design. It darkened the colors a little, but it also changed the colors and warped the cardstock. You know there may be times that you WANT to have a really soft look; but I think I'd just use copic markers that are higher and lighter on the value scale.

COPIC Markers vs. Chalks

This is a study in Copic markers and chalk tablets. My next swap card has to be done in chalk. As you will see from the pictures, it's really difficult to lay down a lot of color with chalk tablets. It gives a very soft feel and is light in color. You will see a card sometime soon made from one of these 6 fall images.

The COPIC markers give you ALOT of VIBRANT colors. The colors I used were: YR00, YR65, Y21, Y12, G21, G28, G24, R08, RV11, RV14, E37 and E33

These lighter colored images are done in chalk. The chalk is very messy because you always have chalk dust that you have to blow off of your cardstock. You also need to be very careful because chalk smears and smudges! It really needs to be set with a fixitive or sometimes hairspray works.

I LOVE my COPIC markers and I'm going to stick with them! I also got the airbrush system on Sunday for my birthday so very soon I'll be experimenting with that! Thanks for looking at this study! Have a great day!

Charm Card from Jan

This is the card I received from Jan for the "charm card swap". Isn't it awesome!! She made her own charms using shrink plastic and I LOVE the witches glasses. The colors are real attention getters and don't forget to notice her little spiders at the bottom section of the card.

Did you also notice how she cut the sentiment apart to make it more meaningful? She did a fabulous job on this one too!

A Birthday Gift for Ruth

Ruth is a friend of mine and she and I share the same birthday. (And she lives across the street!) She likes to send out cards and notes so I decided to make something personalized for her birthday.

I had so much fun making these monogram card sets! They were super easy to make and the cutting of the cardstock is plain and simple. They are sort of like postcards in the sense that they don't have a flap like a regular card. On the backside of each card is another piece of white cardstock for extended writing. The paper ribbon goes around the whole card and then the monogram goes on top!

I made 3 sets with four cards in each set and each set was packaged in it's own clear box.

The card holder at the end is a modified magazine holder. Looking back now, I would have spent more time trying to perfect that since the cards didn't take much time at all.

And this is the birthday cake I made for myself! I can't eat chocolate anymore so I decided to make an Italian Creme Cake from a recipe that I found and I thought it turned out pretty nice! There's lots of coconut and chopped pecans in the cake and in the cream cheese frosting. Of course, I took some over to Ruth and her husband to enjoy and gave even more of the remainder away. We definitely don't need this much sugar sitting around our house! Thanks for checking in!