Sketches for Cards iPhone App review...

So as you may have read I recently got an iPhone and have been obsessed with it ever since. It is my best pal, goes everywhere with me and I always am using it. Well mostly I read iBooks on it...(reading Betrayed from the House of Night series by P.C. Cast now). I have been terribly mojo-challenged for a while now but so I decided to search for a crafty app to get me back to my first love of crafting. There are tons of scrapbooking apps out there but yesterday- I came across the Sketches4Cards app by Anam Stubbington and I love it!

This is a sister app to the Sketches2Scrapbook app and they have a web site as well (http://www.sketches2scrapbook.com/). There is a free version of the app with 12 sketches that you can try and then the paid version with 116 sketches ($4.99). It is basically like having a book of sketches and samples that you can carry around with you in your pocket! LUV IT!

I can just hop on my iPhone to get inspiration whenever I need it. There are over a hundred sketches to choose from and beautiful card samples that you can see when you tap on the sketch. You can search by themes or just browse through the sketches and the ingredients are listed for each sample.

Verdict: This is a great app full of inspiration for those of us who get MoJo challenged from time to time for less than the price of a craft magazine.

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My desk is not too messy only a few stamps left out that need to be cleaned!

I decided to play along with Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday this week. I hope you like my card and what's on my desk....I actually made a card this week. Woo Hoo! I am on a roll.

It is a birthday card for my manager's birthday on Friday. I made this cardbase about a year ago when I first got my Janome Sew Mini Sewing Machine.... I was cleaning up a bit over the weekend and found this and a few other cardbases so I decided to use it. I thought the colors were dark enough that I could use it for a card for a man. I hope he likes it! While making my card, I learned a little something that I never noticed before. Distress ink does not play nicely with my clear stamps! I must have tried stamping the sentiment 4 times before I realized it was the ink and not me or the stamp. I finally tried again with Memento ink and got a perfectly clear image.

Stamps: Tiddly Inks digi, Inkadinkadoo Cardstock and Paper: Stampin' Up Crushed Curry, PTI Stampers Select White, Paper and random yellow cardstock from stash... Ink and Accessories: Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink, Memento Rich Cocoa dew drop, Janome Sew Mini, Making Memories Buttons, Martha Stewart Foam Dots, Ric Rac and rhinestone from stash, Copics: BG000, BG05, BG07, E40-E43, E50-E53, Y000, Y13, Y15

Wedding Mania Continues...

Hi everybody! I know I have been pretty quiet lately. I am suffering from always a bridesmaid syndrome. I am in two weddings this year, one in June and one in July so I have been busy busy busy with my bridesmaid's duties. One actual fun duty is that for wedding number two I have been asked to help make the invitations. It is a bit last minute so I am feeling the pressure on this one. Here is the prototype invitation I have come up with so far. It is just a rough draft based on what the bride specified that she wanted. (Gate fold enclosure with a ribbon band and lots of embossing inside and out. She wants custom silver glitter lined envelopes too- oh what a joy those will be to line!). I still need to get some fancy script monogram stamps for the letters on the front, but overall she likes how this turned out. Can wait to make 100 of them!

Cardstock- Paper Source Black and Soft White

Stamps- Stampin' Up Friends 24-7, Baroque Motifs, MSE funtastic letters

Ink and Accessories- Ranger Bridal Embossing Powder, Stampin Up Black Embossing Powder, Versamark Dazzle Ink, Icicle Stickles, Papersource Bluebell satin ribbon, SU! Square punches

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

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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...