Sweet November Fairwee Emaline

Colored the adorable Fairwee Emaline for my 7 KIDS Sweet November Project Share. Made a bridge fold card using white cardstock and patterned papers. The banner across the front is from the Echo Park Christmas Cheer digital paper set. I altered the color to match my project. The photo doesn't show it, but Emaline is popped up with foam dots and her wings and furry trims are glittered with Wink of Stella pens.

Return of Sweet November

Yippee!!! Amy Young is once again drawing her adorable Sweet November characters and selling them in the 7 Kids Craft Store.  Her first release was last month and Halloween themed.  This month she has a collection of nine new Christmas themed digis titled North Pole Snapshots!  I chose to color up Cookie Thief.  His mischievous grin and sneaky cookie snatching hand was too much to resist, lol.

For the card, I layered the digi image on top of some digi patterned paper for the tabletop and the background.  I paper pieced his shirt with a coordinating patterned paper.  Coloring was quick and easy as all I had left was the elf's face, hands, hair, and hat.  Using Glossy Accents and glitter, the top of the cookies have a nice sparkle.  The Holiday Wishes banner was printed on photo paper and fussy cut.  A small white button completes this festive card.

 

A Special Treat

Today is a special treat for me!  I am a guest designer for this week's Power Poppy's Hues to Use!  After Julie viewed my pink dogwoods card using the Power Poppy stamp Graceful Still Life, she contacted me and asked if I would be interested in accepting the challenge of guest designer for the week.  I was thrilled and of course I said yes!

Here is this week's color inspiration.

And here is my card!

My creative process for Hues to Use is a tad different from my usual approach to card making.  Typically I search my digi library/stash for an image that suits a specific project or just because I think it would be enjoyable to color (Marcella’s being my favorite for sheer indulgence).  The next step is picking colors to work with.  Playing in a Hues to Use challenge makes me switch up the order of picking a stamp and picking colors.  Hues to Use pushes me to consider colors first, then choose an image that works with those colors.  With a prominent butterfly, a Clusiana Tulip (I took a bit of liberty with color here), and a wild Anemone, a circle cropped version of Sunset Sway seemed the best candidate.  Splitting the included sentiment into two parts, half for front and half for the inside, gives balance to the circle.

For this particular challenge, the colors appeared to me as camel, grayed turquoise, and indigo.  The Copic markers that best matched were E31, BG18, and B99.  The highlight and shading colors were built around this foundation.  This color combo is outside my comfort zone (I gravitate to the bright spring hues), but it was fun to work with a more subdued palate.

After coloring the image with Copics and adding a touch of colored pencils, I chalked the background.  I use chalk rather than Copics or other inks as the chalks are more subtle and more forgiving.  The color or blend can be changed if the first try doesn’t look quite right.

Then it’s on to picking papers.  Hmmmm….both a pleasure and a pain.  If the process comes together quickly it’s a joy.  When I search my hundreds (yes, I sheepishly admit to hundreds) of 6x6 paper pads and still cannot find the “right” paper for the “right” look, the process is a total frustration.  Thankfully by looking at a few of my unloved boy themed paper pads I was able to find a pleasing combination!

Embellishments are minimal on most of my cards.  A fishtail banner and three enamel dots complete this card.

I thoroughly enjoyed my stint as guest designer, and I hope you enjoyed viewing my card.

Have a great week!

Black, White, and Chartreuse

Have you checked out this color combo on the Power Poppy blog?  When I saw it, I had to play along!  Black, white, and chartreuse...what a dramatic color palate!  For this challenge I tried something a bit different.  I used colored pencils on black cardstock!  While the process was a tad more involved than usual, the results are worth the effort.

Printing the image, Bubbles and Fizz, on plain paper was the first step.  Next I cut a piece of white graphite paper and attached it to the back of the printed image (fyi, make sure you place the graphite paper with the correct side facing down...lol, I goofed on my first try).  Then I taped the image and graphite paper to the black cardstock, and traced the main lines in the image with a pencil.

After tracing the image, I removed it and the graphite paper to reveal a white image "stamped" on the black cardstock.

Let the coloring begin! I used 50% Warm Grey, Cream, and White for the spheres.  The leaves and stems are colored with Chartreuse, Olive Green, Apple Green, Spring Green, and Prussian Green.

A black and white stripped patterned paper, chartreuse card stock, white card stock, and a white die cut "hello" were all that was needed to complete a card.

Not sure what happened to the color in the card photo, it looks washed out, but the former photo shows the true colors.

Until next time...

Color Pencils and Copic Markers

Hello again.  I've been playing with another Power Poppy digi, Magnolia Sunshine.  As a former East Tennessee gal, magnolias and daffodils are definitely on my "favs" list, so this image had to be colored more than once!  What a perfectly delightful way to practice pencil coloring and copic coloring. 

For these two cards I used a digital software program to layer the image on a slightly green colored background.  A circle was added around the image, and a sentiment was added around the circle.  Then I printed the image twice, once on copic xpress it and once on kraft cardstock.  For the image printed on kraft, I used my Prisma color pencils.  The other image was colored with copics.

What do you think?  I'm happy with both of the projects, but I must admit I am partial to one of them (no, I'm not telling which one).

  

Happy Easter!

Power Poppy Cake

Here are a few cards made with the Power Poppy image Layer Cake.  The blue one is for my dad's birthday.  While it doesn't show very well in the photo, I used some metallic colored pencils on the cake stand and then used Glossy Accents to give it a shine.  I think it gives the stand a vintage feel, and makes it a little more masculine.  Still debating on whether or not to add any embellishments to both his card and the rainbow one.  I kinda like the CAS look.  Hope Dad likes it!

Additional Power Poppy Images

Here are a few more Power Poppy images I've been playing with.  So much fun to color!!!


This one is the same Dogwood digi from the set Graceful Still Life colored with greys and creams.

Here's a card I made for my youngest sister's birthday.  It was a departure from my norm as I used colored pencils on Kraft for this image entitled Autumns Opulence.

Berry It is the image used on the next two cards.  One is colored as red raspberries and one as golden raspberries.  Not sure if I enjoyed coloring these or not.  Was trying to color without merely shading from one side of an object to the next. I am happy with the results, but getting there was somewhat of a pain.  Need more practice getting depth in my coloring.

So that's it for me today.  Thank you for stopping by!

Dipping Toes with Power Poppy

Well today I am dipping my toes back in the blogging pond.  Not sure how long this adventure will last, but I'm giving it a shot with a card I made using the Dogwood image from the Graceful Still Life digi stamp set by Power Poppy.  I adore Marcella's beautiful floral designs!  They make my heart happy!  I was already coloring this gorgeous stamp when the "Hues to Use" challenge was posted on the Power Poppy blog.  Whoo Hoo!  I could play along! 

This image reminds me of the beautiful dogwoods that graced our yard in East Tennessee.  Each spring the hills would turn pink and white with loads of blossoms.  Such a joy to remember the feelings of anticipation created by these heralds of Spring.

 Thank you for visiting.  Enjoy your Wednesday!