I lost track of time, and needed an anniversary card ASAP. Sometimes I see a card on a blog, and it prompts me to buy the stamp set. That happened last month when I saw this card by Yana Smakula using a new set from Pretty Pink Posh. When my friend and I were in Buffalo spending our garage sale "money," this set was available and I picked it up. It's a very close CASE of Yana's card--I gold embossed the image, changed the sentiment, and used some different Copic marker combinations, but otherwise, stuck close to her design. One thing I loved about Yana's card was she took a wreath designed to be a circle and stretched it out into an oval which worked perfectly for my card as well. CASEing someone's design (which I try not to do too often) definitely shortens the time it takes to create a nice card.
I chose a lighter cardstock for the base, as well. This is Papertrey Ink's Rustic Cream which took the Copics quite well. It's not often I make a truly one-layer card, and I gave thought to added some embellishments but decided the business of the wreath was more than enough. I added some sparkle to a few of the larger images with a Nuevo clear glitter pen.
The orange glittery envelope is from the latest Simon Says kit and was just perfect for getting this in the mail with a bit of sparkle, too.
The coloring gave me a chance to try a few new blending colors with my Copic markers. Earlier this summer I purchased the Waffle Flower "Color Swatches" stamp, and created a notebook for samples of my Copics. I expect to expand it to include my various watercolors as well. It's already proven to be a good reference.
On the left are samples of the green Copic markers I own, and on the right blending combinations using those markers.
I have a two-page spread for each color, and probably will have to add some more pages for blending charts. When I was coloring the school bus for Caleb's first day of school card, it was easy to come to this page and see which of the blending combos might work the best.
During my summer reorganization and purge, I also invested in an insert for my Raskog cart that holds Copic markers. It's designed to hold an entire collection of Copics which I will never have (nor do I need). I've been collecting Copics for about 10 years now, and have pretty much everything I will ever need. The insert came from Etsy, and holds all of my Copics as well as my set of Tombow markers. Now when I want to color, I pull the Raskog cart up to my desk and easily pull out (and replace) the markers easily.
I wasn't 100% sure I'd be happy with this, and ordering from Etsy is a bit of a risk since it couldn't be returned, but I couldn't be happier with the purchase.
