Copic Enabler Alert...

Just an fyi- carpediemstore.com is having a sale on Copics to celebrate the 12 new colors. All copic sketch are just $3.95 each. You will not see that price until you add the marker to your cart.

They also have Copic Marker racks for sale ($39.95 free shipping) that hold 112 copics and have a cute saying on them that you can choose. My favorite saying is " Tire ...Broke... Hungry...but I still got my markers" LOL!

Fun with the new Copic colors!

Hello everyone! I finally got a chance to play a little bit with the 12 new copic colors. I thought it would be cool to experiment a little and see what other colors they looked good with and how I could use them.

I tried out all of the new colors V20 V25 RV55 RV63 RV66 YR30 YG61 BG53 BG70 E23 E81 E87 and added in some existing colors that I thought went well with them like BG45, BG72, YG63, YG93, YR30, and the E20's. I haven't come up with a good color combo to use with RV55 yet although I did add it to E23 to make a redish toned hair color.

The stamp I used is from the The Greeting Farm Miss Anya Dressy set. I believe I stamped the images on PTI Stampers Select White cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink (I had stamped this sheet out eons ago for practicing coloring hair and never used it).

If I had to pick favorites of these new colors I would have to say E23 is a must add to your collection. It makes coloring darker skin tones in the E20 rage a lot easier to blend. BG70 is a great alternative to BG10 and BG11 for blending with the BG70 range as well. YR30 is a great one for doing pale blonde hair and for doing highlights around an image too. Hope you find this information useful! Happy coloring!

Copic info...

I know, I know.. I have been silent for the longest time. I am a bad bad blogger! I have been completely consumed by my new iphone and the iBooks app lately. I have been reading like a mad woman and haven't had time to do anything crafty. I am obsessed with Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy Series... I am in the middle of finishing the 5th book Last Sacrafice now. ;0) That Rose Hathaway is one cool character! But, since she doesn't papercraft... I still need to get my creativity fix... I finally had a chance to do some web surfing today.

Here are a few cool copic related things I came across this morning.

Copic has updated their website. There is tons of cool new info up on the site. Definitely worth checking out the tutorials page.

Sharon Harnist has the new 346 Copic marker Blank Color Chart on her blog here that includes the 12 new sketch colors.

I pre-ordered the 12 new sketch colors from iCopic along with some more X-Press It Blending cardstock and the new Miss Anya Hats Off stamp set from The Greeting Farm. I can't wait for my order to arrive. They should be here in March in time for my birthday. Yay!

Most notably I was looking at the new 6 piece sketch sets that will be released in April. I believe these are the ones that are/will be sold at some of the Hobby Lobby stores. They each have two markers paired for blending in 3 different colors. Good ideas here for selecting marker colors to buy if you are just starting out and slowly building your collection...

Sketch 6pc Sea & Sky Set
Colors included in the Sea & Sky set: B24, B28, BG10, BG13, BG72, BG78

Sketch 6pc Skin Tones 1 Set
Colors included in the Skin Tones set: E00, E11, E13, E15, E18, R20

Sketch 6pc Secondary Tones Set
Colors included in the Secondary Tones set: G02, G09, V04, V09, YR61, YR68

Sketch 6pc Bold Primaries Set
Colors included in the Bold Primaries set: 100, B29, E29, G28, R27, Y15

Sketch 6pc Perfect Primaries Set
Colors included in the Perfect Primaries set: B00, B04, R43, R46, Y13, Y19

Sketch 6pc Pale Pastels Set
Colors included in the Pale Pastels set: BG11, BG15, BV0000, BV01, YR12, YR31


Sketch 6pc Floral Favorites 1 Set
Colors included in the Floral Favorites 1 set: R01, RV13, RV69, V05, YG41, YG45


Sketch 6pc Floral Favorites 2 Set
Colors included: B63, B66, RV23, RV25, RV29, YR21

Sketch 6pc Earth Essentials Set
Colors included in the Earth Essentials set: B41, B45, E34, E39, YG13, YG17

Hope to have something crafty to share with you all soon!

XOXO,

Ava's 1st Birthday!

My favorite baby, Ava, turned one on Sunday! Here is the card that I made for her. I wanted a pink theme to go with her present...her very first pink leather jacket! She really seamed to like the card, tried to eat it too!

Ava, her mommy Gina and her daddy Lou!

Recipe: SU! Teddy and Train stamp set, and Build a Bear sentiment, Blush Blossom and Pretty in Pink cardstock, SEI Chocolat Cherie patterned paper, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, grosgrain ribbon, Basic Grey Bling It, Bow Easy, Copics: E31 E33 E35 R81 R83 R85

Woo Hoo new Copic colors are coming!

Have you seen the announcement over at Marianne Walker's blog? 12 new copic sketch colors are coming! They are:

V20 Wisteria

V25 Pale Blackberry

RV55 Hollyhock

RV63 Begonia

RV66 Raspberry

YR30 Macadamia nut

YG61 Pale Moss

BG53 Ice Mint

BG70 Ocean Mist

E23 Hazelnut

E81 Ivory

E87 Fig

I am so excited to see the new copic colors that are coming out. I already made my own E23 because I thought I could get a better blend that way when using E21 and E25, but the rest of the colors look like ones I want to pick up. This brings the grand total of colors available to 346! They don't ship until March, BOO!!! But since my birthday is in March, I know what I am asking for! YAY!

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