Brand new My Create Ink - Copic Color Lab

Ok ladies, we have a fabulous new tool available to us - the My Create Ink Copic Color Lab. Some of you may remember the old SU Color Combo tool site...and it is something like that but for Copics. George Edmonds has worked very hard to create the site but it will require some input from us Copic enthusiasts. So go on over to the Copic Color Lab and enter your favorite Copic Color Combinations into the database and vote for the combos that are on there. Using this tool, you can select a copic marker color that you would like suggestions for what colors go well with it and you can hit search and get lots of suggestions of what other colors to use with it. I think this is a great online alternative to using a copic journal to keep track of favorite color combos because if you have internet access, you can access it where ever you may be.

I have already put in a bunch of the color combos I use... like the ones from Flourishes, Just Rite Stampers, Colleen Schaan, Paper Trey Ink, The Angel Company, Copic Munkie, Color Me Copic, and some of my own personal experiments. Still need to do some of the earth tone combos...

The site is a brand new work in progress so there will be additional functionality and tweaks coming soon.

Oh Christmas Tree

HOLIDAY GREETINGS!!!

Wow, I can't believe it is almost Christmas! Where have I been? Actually, I had a bit of bad luck...blew out the tire on my car on a dark country road after going around a blind curve which I am now refering to as "The Curve of Doom". There was smoke and probably sparks and the tire came clear off the car and rolled down the road a few hundred feet so I and had to be towed. Annoying huge ordeal but thankfully no one was hurt! While I was without wheels, I have been working from home on my old antiquated computer. No blogging and running my company software at the same time. The car is all fixed up now and I am back to work.


I just finished making all my holiday cards last night. I had a whole bunch of orders for them so I felt like one of Santa's elves on the assembly line cranking out cards. I didn't even get a chance to take good photos before I delivered them. Here are two I have to share with you. Please excuse the crummy photos I had to take them with my cell phone.

Oh Christmas Tree card:
Stamp- dollar stamp and sentiment stamp from Michael's
Ink- Encore Gold Craft Ink
Paper- Handsome Hunter SU!, Canson Specialty Paper, Recollections Ivory Cardstock
Accessories- SU! Oval and Slot and Scallop Border Trim and Ticket Corner punches, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, Viva Decor Gold Pearl Pen, Celebrate It Ribbon


Angel card:
Stamp- sentiment SU!, Sugar Plum angel stamp from All That Scraps
Ink- Encore Gold Craft Ink
Paper- Recollections Gold Cardstock, Canson Specialty Paper, Papertrey Ink Vintage Cream and Stampers Select White Cardstock
Accessories- Copics, Nestabilities ovals and scallop ovals, SU! Scallop Border Trim punch, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, Celebrate It Ribbon

WOYWW 78

Happy Wednesday everyone! I am excited to report that Thanksgiving was wonderful and I got a lot of coloring done. Phase 1 of the Xmas cards is complete. All of my images are all colored up. Onto phase 2... cutting all the cardstock and paper.

A quick blurb about Thanksgiving. You may recall I mentioned last week about the annual cornbread argument... well this year... there was no cornbread and my Grandma...was the one who complained about it this year...." Where's the Corn Muffins...she said". I was finally allowed to make something...they put me in charge of the corn muffins and they were the best darn corn muffins I ever made darn it! In fact it was the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever eaten. Below you can see my dad carving up the 15 pound turkey (for 3 people mind you!)... There was a very special preparation this year that included compound butter and singing a little ditty to the turkey... yes I am not kidding. Dad sang to the turkey during the basting and compound butter rubbing process...."Rub a dub dub there's turkey in the tub"! Yes ladies, he cooks and he is single! ;0)

Result- BEST most Flavorful and moistest turkey in all the land! Oh and of course we forgot to put out the cranberry sauce...I remembered just after we said grace so it was all good!

Turkey, Stuffing, Yams, Onions Collard Greens and Cornbread... oh my! (and Lemon Merangue Pie for dessert!)

Onto What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.... controlled chaos, that is what. I found this neat little folder being thrown out at our office. It has a great pocket and it is hard sided so I can use it to color on. All my colored up images are neatly tucked away in here.

Here are all the copic markers I used to color all my images:

Here is a sampling of all the finished colored images...this is not all of them... there were so many I couldn't spread them all out.

Here is the beginning of Phase 2: Card Construction...I made a bunch of little sketches to work from....now I just have to cut all the cardstock and patterned paper...

And here is all the cardstock and patterned paper and ribbon waiting to be cut.

Alternate view:

What a big huge mess this is all going to be once I start cutting everything!









So what is on your workdesk? If you would like to play along you can visit the Stamping Ground blog and post a link to your desk here...

WOYWW 77

Happy day-before-Turkey Day! I am all ready to eat!!! I am not contributing one thing to the meal this year...how lazy of me right? Well in my defense my family is very tiny and it will just be my Grandma, my Dad and myself this year so...since they are the original good cooks in the family, I defer to their awesome cooking abilities...they don't need a third cook in the kitchen. In fact it rather annoys my father to have any other cooks in his kitchen so I will be on the couch coloring my holiday card images.

As for What On Your Workdesk....I stamped off about 40 images last night in preparation. In my desk photo you can see that I have placed the things I want to work with in a basket and on the desk and I will be packing them in my bag tonight to take with me to my Dad's. I have preselected the copics I want to use and put them in my little clear plastic baggie so I can find them easily...

Allegedly dinner is at 3 this year(which Dad also claimed last year...then when I arrived at 3, I was informed I was late and they had been waiting for me to eat). This year I am going over in the morning and I will spend the whole day hanging out with my Grandma and annoying my Dad. We will have our yearly arguement of whether or not cornbread is a traditional Thanksgiving food... I firmly maintain it is since flint corn was a traditional native american food. They are both sportsaholics so I will entertain myself and get crafty. After dinner I am going to hit the Michael's by my Dad's house. They open at 5 and they have much better stuff then my Michael's does. I want to pick up the holiday Smooch Paint kit...it has red green gold and a white shimmer $13.99...then the limited edition Stickles they have for $6.99 and I want another clear 12 X 12 Iris case... they have them for $4.49...all that and an extra 30% off entire purchase including sale coupon and I will be a happy little crafter. After that I will go back to my Dad's and will watch the holiday specials with my Grandma... Taylor Swift and then Beyonce will be on. Grandma likes all the music shows...she is very hip for 83!

Oh and I made a quicky little Thanksgiving themed card...just because I wanted to be in the spirit. The image is a freebie digi MelJen's Designs, and the papers and ribbon are retired SU! One of my pearls fell off my card...sigh.. oh well I tried. (Copics: YR23, YR18, YR15, YR16, E08, E19, E09, G21).

Wishing you all a safe, healthy, and bountiful Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for all of you and your wonderful comments all year long!

Holiday Copic Colors

Happy Monday! I have been quite the busy elf this weekend trying to get started on my holiday cards. So far I have colored up 24 images. Boy do I have alot more to do. I hope to get a bunch done over Thanksgiving weekend. I don't have to cook just show up and eat, lucky me! So while my dad is hogging the TV with Football, I will get busy coloring. Since I don't have any completed cards to share I thought I would share my color map....These are some of the red/green colors I was playing around with and some colors to match my Bo Bunny-Winter Joy and Mitten Weather papers. Please excuse my crude little drawings I did with my copic multiliner.... lol!



My favorite red/green combo so far is R29 R39 R89 and G24 G28 BG99 very rich and dramatic.



I was doing some holiday bulbs (free Digi by Wendy Made) and was using a brighter combo of YG00 G14 G07 G17 and R35 R37 R39 but I colored so many that I ran out of R35 coral ink in my ciao marker. I ordered a refill today from I Heart Papers since they are in Central NJ like me hoping that I will get them by Wednesday. Cross your fingers for me. Happy Turkey Day to everyone!

WOYWW 76

Yay! It is Wednesday again and time for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! I am happy to report that there is plenty on my desk! It's holiday card time and I have begun playing around trying to come up with a concept. I was looking at my spellbinders medallion die and to me it looked a bit like a wreath...so I decided to die cut one in green and see if I could make it work. i wasn't too happy with the finished result on its own so then I decided to emboss the cream colored carstock with the negative image and put them together. I like that a bit better but I still need to cut a hole in the center. Now I am trying to decide how I would like to color the raised parts of the image...maybe red silver and gold to look like bulbs and then do some ribbon at the bottom with a sentiment. I also did some embossing with the cuttlebug xmas tree folder and am pondering how I want to color that as well. No fully formed concepts here yet but I think another day of playing around and I may have something flushed out. What are you working on? If you would like to play along you can post a picutre of your desk here at the Stamping Ground blog.

You Are My Sunshine

Happy Tuesday! I managed to put this card together also over the weekend. I have had this image colored for months but never came up with a card concept to use it. Finally inpiration hit me! Hopefully I can keep up the momentum and get started on my holiday cards!

Ingredients-

Stamp- Summer Fairy digi by Spesch Stamps, sentiment PTI! Fillable Frames

Ink- Smooch Illuminate, Grape Jelly Memento Ink

Paper- PTI Cardstock, Basic Grey Kioshi, Making Memories Girl 2.0

Accessories- Recollections pearls, Tim Holtz Alterations Baroque Sizzix die, Petaloo Dazzlers

Copics: E000 E00 E02 V01 V06 V09 BG05 YR21 YR23 YR24 BG0000

Simple Joys of Life

Happy Monday! I am back from my long weekend and feeling refreshed. I finally was able to make a card from this image and paper that I had picked out two weeks ago. I even made a handmade flower to go with it and added some Spica glitter on the piping of her outfit for a little sparkle...hard to see in the photo. I also used my compressor and airbrush system to make a muted grafitti style background that reminded me of spray paint, to go with the Kenny K Skater Girl image. I even threw in some Washi Tape.

challenge- Kenny K Krafty Girlz challenge # 19 Sparkle & Spots

Ingredients-
Stamps- Kenny K Skater Girl Digi
Ink- copic clear spica pen
Paper- Me & MyBig Ideas, Making Memories, PTI cardstock, Dusty Durango cardstock, Xpress It Blending Card
Accessories- Marcella by K sticker(sentiment), Luv My Tapes washi tape, Copic ABS3 and compressor
Copics-E0000 E000 E04 E25 E27 E29 R20 YR04 YR07 YR09 B34 B91 B97 N3 N5 N7 YG03 YG63; BG10 airbrushed

WOYWW 75

Happy Wednesday! Not much going on in craftyland for me. Been super busy with work and suffering from extreme crafter's block. I decided I have to get some crafting done since I am off for Veteran's day tomorrow so I have pulled out some images and matched them up with some papers in an effort to inspire me to make some cards tomorrow. If that fails I have a scrapbook I have to work on and the pictures I ordered just came from Snapfish so maybe I will get something creative accomplished over my 4 day weekend. I must must must figure out how to thread a bobbin so I can start using my sewing machine again. Thank goodness for Youtube tutorials or I wouldn't have a clue how to use the thing.

If you would like to play along you can visit the Stamping Ground here.

WOYWW 74

Welcome back to another lovely installment of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! I still love doing this because I am so sloth-like and slow at making cards.... I feel disappointed that I don't have something new to show off everyday, like I haven't accomplished anything. Well I haven't done much more this past few days that straighten up and put away all my halloween supplies and oh yeah and it is very cold here in the northeast so I have taken to hibernating in my snuggie every night afterwork. It has sleeves though so I don't really have an excuse for not making a card... So I have made a pact with myself to make sure that every tuesday night I set about starting a card and taking a picture of my desk so I can play along with WOYWW. Then hopefully your lovely comments will encourage me to actually finish the card.

Above you will see that yes- I have a fully colored image ( I actually have many neatly filed away in a folder). I don't really understand what possessed me to color her outfit orange and blue...and give her green eyes...but I did. So finding paper to match this was a bit of a stretch. As you can see I did come up with some, now I have to decide on a layout...which is always the most difficult part for me. I think I will use the Wednesday sketch on splitcoast stampers just so I don't have to design my own layout. What can I say, you all knew I was a lazy stamper. Love to color...hate to actually make the card! At least the challenge this week over at Kenny K Krafty Girlz challenge is 'Anything Goes'! Can't go wrong with that.

Happy Halloween!

Quick Halloween card for you. Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

Ingredients:
Stamps- Simply Betty Digi stamp
Paper- PTI cardstock, Echo Park patterned paper
Accessories- Recollections sticker, May Arts Ribbon
Copics- BG01 BG02 BG05 E000 E00 E11 YG21 YG23 YG25 V04 V06 V09 N3 N5 N7 E31 E34 E35 E37

A Charcoal Halloween

Here is my quick and simple card I made yesterday morning before work. It only took 5 minutes to assemble from all the bits and pieces I had laying around on my desk. I had lots of fun coloring Charcoal...finally got some Neutral gray copic markers and the last of the BG family so I had fun with those coloring the hat and then decided to add a touch or sparkle with my spica pens.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Ingredients:

Stamps- Pollycraft Charcoal 'Moonspooks' Digi, Meljen's Designs Quilted Boo digi

Paper- Copic Xpress It Blending Cardstock, PTI Plum Pudding Cardstock, PTI New Leaf Cardsotck, Echo Park Halloween patterned paper

Accessories- May Arts Ribbon, Bow Easy, Oval Nestabilities, Labels Nestabilities, paper piercer

Ink- Lavender, Mint and Black Spica pens, Sharpie Extra Fine White Poster Paint Pen

Copics: MOON- Y11 Y13 Y15 HAT- BV11 BV13 BV17 BG93 BG96 BG99 KITTY- N3 N5 N7 FENCE- E30 E31 E34

A Bitterfrost Halloween

Happy Thursday! Here is my completed card with the elements I showed on my workdesk yesterday. I am truly loving this ribbon. I picked up a yard when I was at my local SS -Scrappers Cove. I liked that it was already ruffled and that I wouldn't have to do all the work myself to make it look that way. I also finally found something I could use all that Dusty Durango cardstock with... I am not too big an orange fan so I never really used this color but... it goes really well with the Bo Bunny Kitchen Spice papers and the Echo Park Halloween papers I used yesterday on my candy tins. I also managed to make another card this morning before work ( I know shocking...time to stamp and I made it to work on time!). I will show you that one tomorrow.

Ingredients:
Stamps- Pollycraft Luna Bitterfrost Happy Haunting digi, Meljen's Designs Stitched Trick or Treat digi
Paper- Copic Xpress It Blending Card, PTI Dark Chocolate cardstock, SU! Dusty Durango Cardstock, Bo Bunny Kitchen Spice patterned paper
Accessories- Want to Scrap Pearls colored with E79, ribbon, dimensionals, Oval Nestabilities
Copics: SKIN E0000 E000 EYES G21 HAIR Y21 YR23 YR24 CLOTHES BV11 BV13 BV17 PUMPKINS YR12 YR15 YR16 YR18 YR04 YR07 YR09 YR23 YR24

WOYWW 73

Happy Wednesday! Time for another installment of Whats On Your Workdesk- #73! I really like this game.... it is a great way to post without having to finish my project the night before...lol! I am getting closer to a finished card...see... all the cool parts laid out above. I have my images, my sentiments, my cardstock layers....everything right? Wrong... I decided that since I am incorporating the brown into this card (the image far left) that I have to put some kind of ribbon on this too. You'll see once I'm done.

I do have one finished project to show you...or three if you want to be technical about it.
Altered Halloween Candy Tins! They began their life as my beloved General Foods International Dark Mayan Chocolate Latte tins...yummo! I have a dozen or so of these empty babies lying around and I decided I would recycle them in a fun way. My coworkers kids love my cards and stuff so I made them candy tins for Halloween.

I will be filling them up with Baskin Robins ice cream flavored hard candies and Ghiardehlli chocolate squares today.

So what is on your workdesk? If you would like to show it off...pop by the Stamping Ground and enter your post into Mr Linky so we can all see what you are working on.