Archive for the ‘Copic Markers’ Category

Hi everyone, we are back for Part II of this beautiful Sunflower Mouse card.

Here is where we left off yesterday.  We basically have the entire image colored in and now we are going to start layering in and shading the flower.

However, before we get started, if you click on the picture you will notice that I have colored a little outside the lines in some places.  I can take the colorless (#0) blender and put that color back into the lines.  Since we are dealing with alcohol inks you need to push the color back to a line.  So you would place the colorless blender on the outer edge of the color you are wanting to push back.  Let it dry and if it still needs to be pushed in some more do it again.

I’m using YR68 to start layering in some orange.  I’m filling in the  base and then taking my marker and flicking the tip up and out so it doesn’t look like a solid line.

Where the flower petal is rolling back I place some of the YR68 underneath.  Take a look at the petal on the left by the mouse’s ear.  The part of the petal that is rolled up is still light and the underneath is shadowed with the Y19 and now the YR68.  This contrast in colors helps the eye to see that the petal is actually turning back on itself.

When you are putting in your shadows keep thinking of where your light source is and how the shadows would fall on your subject.  You may even want to put a pen or something in the upper right hand corner in this instance to help remind you of where the light is coming from and how it would fall on the object.

Now I’m adding in another layer on the petals and this time the color is YR14.  This is a muted yellow gold that allows you to blend the YR68 and tone it down while adding more depth with additional shadows.

I used this color on the shadowed areas that the stamp had in it.  When the stamps give you those shadow indicators use them they make it easy.   I took Y21 and colored the petals again to help blend the colors together. This helps to take off any straight edges and adds another layer of depth to the flower.

Ok, here we are at the object that is sitting (or in this case laying) on top of the flower.  This is the last item you color.

I first colored the entire mouse using W1 which is a light warm gray.  I took W3 and started adding some deeper shadow to areas around her ear and on top of her head.  Next comes the deepest color W7.  I add light touches around her body where she is laying on the flower and underneath her arm laying across her tummy.  Then I used W1 again to blend all of the grays together.  I used R00 for her tummy nose and check and R20 to deepen the color.  I used R20 and R85 on the inside of her ear and I added just a little Y02 to give a little yellow cast to blend with the flower.

You will need to click on the picture to get the best close up look at how I finished her.  I took a multi-liner 03 and gave her some eyelashes.  I used Glossy Accents on her nose, hands, feet and tail.  I used Stickles on the flower petals and leaves to give a little extra sparkle.  I used Scribbles 3-D paint in yellow, brown, copper and gold and dotted it in for the sunflower seeds.

If you look on her cheek there are 3 little dots that accent her check that is Sakura Star Glaze pen and I used the Sakura puff pens to add additional highlights to the stem and flower petals.  Since these puff up a little it gives it additional dimension.

The blue behind the flower was done using B000 and B21 to create a sky effect.  It looks like the sunflower is just floating in the air and the blue sky and clouds are behind it.

The ribbon is vintage seam tape that I found at Smitten, in McKinney, Texas.  I’m going have to go back and get more of this stuff the colors are just so beautiful.

The charm I found at M’s over a year ago.  I inked all the edges of the mats and card with TH Distressed Ink called Broken China and the brown mats I used black on them so they would stand out a little.  I used the largest Nestibilities from the Large Label set  to cut  and emboss the sunflower with the mouse and then cut a brown mat by cutting a rectangle just a quarter of an inch larger and used my ticket punch from Stampin’ up for the corners, great match …..who knew?

I hope you found some information on these two post that will help you with your coloring projects.  If you have any question just send me an e-mail.  At the top of the blog is a Contact Tab and it will shoot me an e-mail.  It is a lot easier to respond through that system than through the comment section.  Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you like the card!

I love this image of this mouse relaxing in a giant sunflower.  The papers I used for the card is DCWV Linen Closet.

I’m going to break this post down into two post because of the length of showing how I colored the image.  Rather than do a video I thought I would do some snap shots that way you could see where the colors where placed.

This is a stamped image and it is on regular card stock.  My preference is to use Gina K’s Pure Luxury card stock.   This line of card stock comes in several colors but for Copic Markers the white or ivory works best.    I should also say I don’t own this stamp.  I was part of a card challenge group and we received stamped images to color (using the Magic Color Pencil Technique – MCPT) and then make a card.  The coordinator of the challenge always sent us extra stamped images and this one was one of them.

Let’s get started.  I know there are multiple ways to color using Copic Markers; however, I found the best technique for me  is the way that the instructors @ Copicmarker.com taught me.

I also use some of the knowledge I’ve learned through the years from painting classes that I have taken.  I first determine which direction the light source is coming from and in this case the stamp directs you since the little mouse’s face is positioned to the upper right.  Knowing where the light source is coming from helps you determine where the shadows would fall.   This stamp also helps because it has some shadowing already built into the stamp image.

Next I color the items that are behind or underneath other elements.  Here I’m starting with the stem because it is underneath the leaves and then I will color the leaves because they are underneath the petals.  The third thing to color would be the bed of seeds because they are underneath the little mouse.  You build from whatever is behind, underneath or the furtherest item in the background.

You’ll notice I didn’t color the stem completely with color nor did I color the rolled up part of the leaves.  This is because I will use a lighter shade of green to emphasis these area.

I go back in with G99 and add the dark shade where the darkest shadow would be on the stem.  When using a dark color like this, little is more.  As you build layers of color up on each other the dark will get darker so a little goes a long ways.

You can click on the picture to get a closer look.  Also, this card stock absorbs the Copic Marker so it makes it more difficult to get a good blend.  We’ll get there it just takes a little extra effort.

Now I’m going back in and adding a lighter shade of green (actually a yellow green YG95) to those areas I left untouched before.

I’m using the end of this pen so you can see where the YG95 was added.  It was on the rolled up part of the leaves and then down the center of the stem.

Now I am layering in Y21.  This starts giving the stem some depth and additional shadowing than the dark G99.  You can see that as I layer the color on top of the other greens it starts to blend them all together and you see a gradual color change.

I try to keep in mind the light source is in the upper right hand corner and where the shadows would fall on the leaves and stems.

Moving on to the middle of the flower where the seeds is making the little mouse a bed, I first color all of that area with E51.  This is a milky white shade and provides a nice base for the various colors that will make up the sunflower seed.

Around the little mouse I dot in E09 which is Burnt Sienna.  You’ll notice I get out of the lines a little bit but I can use what is called the colorless blender (which is not but sort of is a blender to correct that).

I continued to layer on various colors to give the seed bed some depth.  I used E37 which is a Sepia to give some brown undertones and I added that over the E09 and moved it out toward the flower petals.  I used E00 to finish blending out all the colors together.

I used Y21 on all the petals and came back in where the shadows were indicated on the stamp and layered Y19 on top of them.  When you are looking at the flower you can see where the petals turn up or curl up.  Just like the leaves you want to keep them the lightest color.

We’ll stop here for today and pick up again tomorrow.  I think she is already looking good but there is so much more that we will do to make her even stand out more.  Thanks for stopping by and let me know what you think so far.

It does not seem possible that my DGS is 5 years old today.  This weekend we had his 5th Birthday Party and I’m telling you this was one happy little dude!  I caught him with chocolate cake all over his mouth!

He had his party at a place called BounceTown.  This is a place that has various bounce houses, air hockey, a shuffle board and a place to have the cake and presents all in air conditioned facilities.  In Texas this is a must and it is self contained so it is easy to keep up with all the excited kids!

This has been one busy week, with Mom getting sick (we had to go to 3 different places to get her treated), Gareth’s B-Day and Papa and NaeNae keeping GKs, and playing a little handy man for Daughter #2.  Unfortunately, during most of that time I had a bad headache and didn’t get much sleep.

I made Garth’s B-card using the Everyday Paperdolls and George Carts.  The sentiment is a $1 stamp from M”s (love that).

I double cut his hair and enhanced it with Copics (YR68, YR14, E37).  His checks are R22 and I used ColorBox’s Bronze ink pad to ink around his face hands and feet.  The 5 has Glossy Accents on it to give it some dimension and I put it and his hair on some foam tape to give them a little lift.  I cut the little “rocker” out of scraps I had in my stash.

I glittered the star in the sentiment with MS’s red glitter and used a white pen to draw the doodling around the blue star, pants and guitar.  I drew in the strings and frets on the guitar to give it a little more depth.

The little “rocker”  and his guitar and everything else  are cut at 3.5″; however,  I cut his hair at 3.0″.  It seemed to big to cut at the 3.5″.

Here is the in side and we attached a $5 bill since he was turning 5.  Of course I think he had 2 other gifts from us to make sure he was covered.

Later when I asked him if he liked his card, he told me that he was not a “Rock Star”, he said, “Really, NaeNae I’m not”!  Gotta love it, they don’t mind telling you how they feel!

In my books he is, he drums like crazy and he already has a real guitar, loves music and we all know that the girls go after musicians!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Hi, everyone!  Well, it’s official I’m going back to work full time on Monday.  Not exactly what I wanted to do, but it is something I need to do and give the old retirement nest egg some much needed rest.

Luckily, I found a good job right where I live and my commute is only going to be 5 minutes…..the last time I had a 5 minute commute was when I worked as an attendance clerk for the High School.  My hours are pretty sweet too…9 – 5.  I get to sleep till 7 and then get myself up and on the treadmill and get my exercise done before I start my day.

Ok, enough about that stuff.  Take a look at these flowers.  They are all handmade.  I’m working on some videos (this is not as easy as everyone makes it seem) and they are going to show you how to make each one of  these beauties.

Each time I make one of them I think it is my favorite until I make another one.

This is one of the intricate cuts that is on the solution cartridge Summer in Paris.  I cut this using a light weight card stock and it cut beautifully.  The blade I was using was not new so that is even more impressive.

I used this piece as an embellishment to airbrush with Copics at the Certification Class.  Yhea, I’m going to have to have those power tools.  Power tools for crafts…..oh that makes me giddy.

I’ll do my best to get the second video up in the next couple of days on how to make the little roses.  Then after that we will have to play it by ear how much I get done now that I’m working 9-5, what a way to make a livin’.

Be sure and come back or better yet sign up to get a notification when something new is posted.  The subscribe box is on the side bar at the top.

Ok, I’m officially a Copic Certified Designer.

Spent the entire day yesterday learning so much.  I am so glad I took the time and paid the $$ to do this class.

Somethings I already new but having that hands on experience and them showing some techniques made a lot of those “aha” moments.  I can tell you they are also enablers, I want one of the air brush systems now!

Stay tune, as I start putting the knowledge together and I’ll show you some of the techniques.  They will be a lot easier to understand now that I can show you through video.

Let me tell you I made a beautiful flower on Saturday that I can’t wait to show you how to do it.  So simple, and the colors are so beautiful.  So keep visiting and keep your eyes open for the next video installment.

I made this card for a friend of mine.

The rain boots are a $1 stamp I found at Micheal’s.  I stamped it on the green color card stock and then put some Glossy Accents on them with a little green Stickles for some shine.

The rain drops and splashes are from Cloud 9.

The sun is an inking technique that I’m going to do a video on.  It is really an easy technique and it gives stunning results.  I added some yellow Stickles to the rays to add a little dimension.

The base of the card is acetate that I ran through a Fiskars rain drop embossing plate.  The tag is a digi stamp that I got free from Meljen’s Designs.  She is so sweet to give you a freebie usually on Monday’s and a sneak peek of a new digi stamp release on Fridays.  I ran some acrylic ink in Lemonade around the acetate.

Believe it or not I made my own rub-ons for the Rain and Shine (oh yes I think that needs to be a How To video).

I colored the sweet bear and the flowers with my Copics and I think I used every color I own.

I used some more Glossy Accents and Stickles to give the flowers depth and texture.

I decorated the back of the tag and the piece that was holding the tag so you could see a surprise sentiment when you flipped the acetate card over.

I used a tape runner to attach the tag sleeve to the acetate making sure I went as close to the edges as I could get so the tag could slide in and out.  I ran a bead of glue on the tag sleeve where I wanted the tag to stop, making a nice little pocket for the tag to slide into.

This card was based on the GTS (Go To Sketches) by PaperCrafts page 12.

I love it when a sketch and idea come together.

Thanks for looking and be sure and leave me a comment, love hearing from you.

I made this card for my DGD, Rylan, she turned 2 years old.

This biggest part of this card is rub-ons.  It was a K&Company Amy Butler Set that I bought probably over a year ago.  It included all the medallion, corners and the  little crystals to go around the medallion and several other pieces that I used inside the card.  The paper is from BasicGrey urban prairie line.

That is Cinderella’s dress; however, I used my Copics and  colored it pink (RV00, RV02 & RV06).  There is Diamond Dust on the white petticoat and glitter on the top of the dress.  The dress is a color book page I found on the internet. I saved it and used it as a digi stamp so I could color it with the Copics.

The crown is an SVG file that I got from ScrappedLives.nl.  She has some incredible files and they cut beautifully.  Be sure to visit her site and leave her a comment.  The glass slipper is made out of acetate and the cut is from SVGcuts.com. They have super free cuts and great tutorials on how to use Scal.   I used the bottom layer of the shoe and placed a piece of white shimmer paper behind the acetate so you could see the shoe better.  I used some Sakura Gelly Roll Star Dust pen on the shoe to make it a little shimmery, a little bling and the glass slipper come to life.

I needed the dress to be pink so it would match her card and I thought Cinderella’s dress fit the card perfectly,

The rhinestones I found at my local M’s.  I’m always watching the 10 for 10 spots and picking up a package of rhinestones as I go along in various colors.

I used Martha Steward white gold glitter on the crown and I cut the crown out of cracker box that I recycled.  The dress was also cut out of a recycled box and the digi stamp glued on top.  Then I added foam dots to the dress, crown and the toe of the shoe to add some dimension.

I decorated the inside with the rest of the rub-ons from the package and wrote her a short note.  Rylan says Sleeping Goudy (instead of Sleeping Beauty) and she calls one of the Princesses CindaBelle.  I edged the message mat with a line of MS white gold glitter.

The card came out beautiful and it fit her and her party perfectly!

Thanks for stopping by and leave me a comment, I love hearing from you.

A couple of weeks ago my 81 year old Mother and I spent the day together making B-cards for my daughters.  This is the card that she made for Daughter #1.

She crocheted the flower and she used TH’s Distressed Ink Scatter Straw to ink a white card.  We pulled some pattern paper from my stash and crimped a piece of scrap pattern paper for the stem.

The ribbon is Stampin Up and we used Copic markers to color the white checks to match.  Yes, that is a MS punch for the border.

Mother does such beautiful handwork and getting one of these cards is a real treasure.

The leaves are made out of Aida 14 count cross stitch cloth and I’ll be showing how to do this soon.

If memory serves me correctly the “HB” stamp is from M’s.  We dressed it up with some rhinestones and a cute little bee.

Probably a better choice for the embellishments would have been gold instead of silver, but Mom choose the center of the flower and I wanted to keep the metal look the same for her.

Very, very cute.  Daughter #2″s B-day is coming up in May.  Mom’s card for her is already made but I can’t show it  until after May 17th.  However, I just finished a sympathy card that I’ll let you see and I did the front several ways.  Leave me a comment, I love hearing from you.

I took the image from the stamp image and shrunk it down a little.  If you look closely you can see that this image is colored a little differently than the larger image I showed yesterday.  Just click on the picture to get a larger view.

I removed the little bee and the expression marks from the image. Tip: I used a correction tape runner to remove the items I didn’t want and then re-scanned the image.

I made the bee so it could be 3D.  I bought a stamp from M’s for $1 not too long ago and it had the bee and a saying “bee well”.  I stamped it twice; one time to get the bee with wings attached and the second time I stamped it on vellum  to cut out a second set of wings .  I took the first stamped image and colored it and stickled it and let it dry.  On the vellum wings I used a glue glitter (not Stickles) that was a holographic white and set it aside and let them dry.   Once dry I cut out just the bee and cut off the antennas, we’ll make them out of thread, and I cut just the wings out of the vellum stamped image.

Once everything is dry I covered the bee with Glossy Accents and then stuck the vellum wings into the Glossy Accents and made sure they were sticking up.

I created the antennas by taking a piece of black thread and folded it in half.  I placed a drop of Glossy Accents on the back of the bee and laid the thread down into the Glossy Accents.

I then cut the thread to the length it needed to be for the bee.

I raised the finished bee up on foam to give it a little lift, this along with the vellum wings gives the bee the feeling that he/she is flying over head and of course that little gray bunny is watching.

I also added a trail of a flight pattern up the side and across the top.

The image did not come with grass so I added it by starting out with a zig-zag stitch in green using Sulky thread and then  added addition color using Copic Markers.

This added some additional interest and texture to the card.

This is the back of the stamped image.  As you can see the color of the Copic Markers are bleeding through.  According to everything I’ve read this is a “good thing”.  It shows how well you have saturated the image.  Yeah, the purple egg is really saturated because I was having trouble getting it to look like I wanted it.  Which brings up a great things about Copics is you can add more color or use the blender pen to take away color and work it until you get just where you want it.

I also wanted to show you the back so you could see the zig-zag stitching.  When you look back at the previous picture it shows you how much the Copic Markers add to the stitching.

Here is the finish project.  I used Stampin Up’s ticket punch (with the corner guides removed) to cut the small half circles in the pink mat.  This helps keep the ribbon in place on the mat.  I also used the Swiss Dot CB embossing folder on the pink mat.

I used various colors of Tim Holtz’s Distressed inks to ink the edges of the card and mats using the foam applicator.  By the way you can use that foam applicator to achieve the same look with any stamp pad.

The inside was done very similar to the outside except I distressed the edges of the yellow mat with the edge of my scissors and then inked them.

Yep! That’s ducky that I had colored earlier.  I just cut him out and glued him right on top.

He was the perfect color and a cute surprise when you open the card (remember I colored him on watercolor paper).

I love the way this turned out and these little bunnies are a combination of using the Copic Markers and Prisma Color Pencils using MCPT (Magic Color Pencil Technique).

The yellow bow is in the upper right side to represent the sun.  I think it came out so cute.  Yes, I know there is a lot of work in this project.  Unfortunately, I agonize over getting these things perfect and I can’t help but put in all the little details and get the coloring just right.

Thanks so much for stopping by and please leave me a comment I would love to hear from you and what you think!

First let me say, I don’t know what is going on with this post but I couldn’t get the images to spread out like I wanted them.  Oh well!

Because most pens need to be stored horizontal I came up with this idea.  One of the things that makes this nice is that you can make it as large as you need it and you can add to it as your collection of pens grow.  You know that it will grow especially if you get into Copics.

You can find these cylinders at the Container Store and they run $1.59 each.  You can have a storage of 10 for around $16.  Because they are plastic they will have a tendency to slide so I purchased Self-Stick Rubber Pads, you get 18 pads for about $3.00 at the Container Store.  You might be able to find them cheaper at Wal-Mart.

I remove the lid and put it in my stash to use another way or time.  I then added 4 pads to one side of the cylinder.

As you stack the cylinders up this will keep them from sliding around.

Since my stack of these cylinders is getting pretty large (I have 20 of these) I’ve started using little binder clips to clamp them together ever so often.  This helps gives a large collection of cylinders added stability as the collection grows.  This also creates a nice storage for my small binder clips ( I use these as clamps sometimes for things I need to hold in place until the glue dries).

Because the cylinders are clear it makes the area feel open.  I’ve been very happy with this storage system and have invested somewhere around $45.00 over a period of a couple of years.  The storage I’ve seen for pens usually runs around the same price, is large and bulky and does not have 20 slots for your pens.  The other nice thing about this storage, especially with Copics, is I can put like color hues together rather than color coding (BG – Blue Green, RV- Red Violet).  I more interested in what colors can be combined together to get a nice graduation of color and storing them together makes me think about colors differently.

Hope this gives you an idea to create your own storage.  When you go into a store look outside the normal storage items and see if you can find something that fits your need to a “Tee”.